They had begun to build the new palisades. Yes, here was the fort, and the Guion house, and the grave that she did not care to linger over. Then they turned into the street of the Barns, La rue des Granges, and soon found Mère Lunde, who was cooking a savory pottage, and welcomed Gaspard Denys warmly.
A little old Frenchwoman such as artists love to paint. She was round in the shoulders, made so by much stooping over her son and her work in the tiny garden, where she raised much of her living. She was wrinkled, but her eyes were bright, and her cheeks still had a color in them. She wore the coif, her best one being white, but this a sort of faded plaid. Her skirt just came to her ankles, and to-day she had on sabots, that made a little clatter as she stepped round. Over her shoulders was pinned a small gray kerchief. She looked so cheerful and tidy, so honest and kindly, that she went to one’s heart at once.
M’sieu must hear about her son, poor lad—all she had to live for. Yet, perhaps, it was well the Good Father took him before she went. And now she worked a little for the neighbors. Everybody was kind to her. And would they not partake of her simple meal? It was not much, to be sure, but it would make her very happy.
Denys admitted that he was hungry, and Renée’s eyes had an assenting light in them. Over the meal he made his proposal, which Mère Lunde accepted with tears in her eyes.
“God is good,” she said, crossing herself devoutly. “Father Meurin said I must have faith, and something would come. Oh, how can I thank you! Yes, I will gladly keep your house, and care for the child, and strive to please you every way. Oh, it is, indeed, the best of fortune to happen to me, when life had begun to look lone and drear.”
“To-morrow, then, we will begin to clear up.”
“Yes; to-morrow,” she replied cheerfully.
[CHAPTER III—A NEW HOME]
In after years, when Renée de Longueville looked back at what seemed the real beginning of her life, everything about the old town was enveloped in a curious glamour. For it was all abloom. Such flowers, such great trees in pink and white, such fragrance everywhere, and everybody moving to and fro, as if impelled by some strange power. What were they all doing? And the children were so merry. To a little girl who had been mewed up in an old château, rather gloomy at that, and no one about but elderly servants, the transition was mysterious, quite beyond the child’s depth. But she felt the new life in every limb, in every nerve, and she was full of joy.
The streets of the old town, if not wide, were comparatively straight; those running along the river the longest, those stretching up to the fort only a few squares. Nearly every homestead had its separate lot or garden, enclosed by some sort of rude fence. Outside were the fields, cultivated largely in common; woodlands and an immense prairie stretching out to the northwest. Beside the fort were several towers in which ammunition was stored, although the Spanish government had a great fancy for building these.