“I am as yet ignorant of the cause;” she answered: “I do not know, I cannot divine, why I am here a prisoner.”
“She does know;” fiercely interrupted the sobbing Seraphine, “She does, she does,” she reiterated, and seemed disposed to fly at her tooth and nail. “She knows she is a bold and wicked creature,—she, she, she; she is a, a,—I don't know what she is;” she cried, spurting out the last words in a paroxysm of sorrow and vexation, and flung herself into a chair sobbing hysterically, with toilet and temper alike disordered.
“Calm yourself, Seraphine,” said the Seigneur.
“Yes, calm thyself, girl,” echoed the ponderous Samson. “Why, what a wild duck thou art, sister, flapping and quacking because an unshotted barrel has been fired at thee. She is an unshotted gun, she has no name; and what is a thing without a name? nothing: for if it were something it would have been called something. What thing is there—that is a thing—that has not got what a pudding has? a name,” and he laughed till his sides shook, and drawing a pouch from his pocket, took thence a quid of tobacco, and put it into his cheek, at the same time playfully offering another to the outraged Seraphine, who petulently dashed it from his fingers, and affected to bridle at the insult.
Meantime Amanda stood in silent sadness, and the Seigneur, who had been watching her during the heartless flirtation between the brother and sister, advanced one pace into the room, and said: “I know your story, and have reason to be angry, not so much with you as with my son, whom, I believe, you are acquainted with, one Claude Montigny.” Amanda turned away her face and blushed.
“You do know him I perceive,” the Seigneur continued, “and if by chance he has happened to know you I do not blame him, much less can I blame yourself: but, lady, remember,” and the proud Montigny advanced, and bending over her whilst his voice fell, as if it were intended for her ear alone, said “remember, we are not all of the same degree, though Heaven has fashioned all of the same clay. The proudest and the wealthiest in Canada might hail you as a daughter; but old prescription, antecedents, prospects, all combine to render impossible your union with my son.”
Amanda blushed yet deeper, and both of them stood for awhile embarrassed, but at length she said falteringly, and glowing like a crimson poppy in her confusion:
“I own it just that you should urge these large considerations; yet, believe me, sir, I have been passive in this matter, and have not sought your son's acquaintance; neither, indeed, has he, if he be rightly judged, (and you would not wrong your son), perhaps, sought mine; for it would seem there are amities that Providence provides for us, without our will or knowledge. It was accident that brought us face to face; as we observe the sun and moon—that are separate in their seasons, and withal so different in their glory's given degree—brought monthly, and as if fortuitously, though, in reality, by eternal, fixed design, into conjunctive presence amidst the sky.
Yet who shall blame the sun and moon for that?