When they started, a salute was fired. He was leaving his new fort but half completed.
"Who was that pretty young girl who kept so close to the Héberts?" Eustache Boullé asked his sister. "There, talking to that group of Indian women."
"Oh, that is M. Destournier's ward. Surely, you saw her when you first came here, though she was but a child then. A foundling, it seems. Good Father Jamay was quite urgent that she should be sent home, and spend some years in a convent."
"And she refused? She looks like it. Oh, yes, I remember the child."
"Beauty is a great snare where there is a wayward will," sighed the devoted Hélène. "It is no country for young girls of the better class. Though no one knows to what class she really belongs."
Eustache fell into a dream. What a bright attractive child she had been. How could he have forgotten her? He was two-and-twenty now, and his man's heart had been stirred by her beauty.
If Rose was not so much of a dévote she began to make herself useful to many of the Indian converts who missed their dear lady. To keep their houses tidy, to learn a little about the useful side of gardening, and how their crops must be tended, to insure the best results. The children could be set to do much of this.
Quebec fell back to its natural state. There was no more carousing along the river, no drunken men wrangling in the booths, no affrays. Rose could ramble about as she liked, and she felt like a prisoner set free. Madame Destournier was better, and each day took a sail upon the river, which seemed to strengthen her greatly. Presently they would spend a fortnight at the new settlement, Mont Réal. Many things were left in the hands of M. Destournier, and his own affairs had greatly increased.
One afternoon Rose had espied a branch of purple plums, that no one had touched, on a great tree that had had space and sun, but fruited only on the southern side. No stick or stone could dislodge them. How tempting they looked, in their rich, melting sheen.
"I must have some," she said, eyeing the size of the trunk, the smooth bark, and the distance before there was any limb. Then she considered. Finding a crotched stick, a limb that had been broken off in some high wind, she caught it in the lowest branch and gently pulled it down until she grasped it with her hand.