“She was going to the père’s; then his niece came from Michilimackinac. They had bad work at the Mission with the Indians, and she just escaped with her life and her little boy.”
“Yes; I will see her. It is advised that you get the cage before you find the bird; but the bird may be captured elsewhere if you wait too long. The child’s box comes in from St. Charles; they would not stir a step farther last night. I must go and look after it. Then I can send it here? And Louis will not kick it out of doors when he comes?” smiling humorously.
“He will be liker to keep the little one for good and all and let you whistle,” she retorted merrily.
“Thank you a hundred times until you are better paid. And now I must be going. I expect the town will almost look strange.”
“And plain after gay Quebec; and Detroit, they say, has some grand people in it. But, bah, they are English!” with a curl of the lip.
He rose now. Madame Renaud had not been idle, but had rolled out dough fairly brown with spices and cut it in little cakes of various shapes, filling up some baking sheets of tin.
“You will leave the child? Renée—what is her name? It has slipped my mind.”
“Renée de Longueville.”
The child clung to his hand. “I want to go with you,” she said in a tone of entreaty.
“Yes, and see St. Louis? He is her king or was until she touched this Spanish soil.”