"I mean nothing of the kind. But by the side of your honesty we all appear like tapers when the sun breaks in," said Père Michaux, gallantly. Still, Anne could not help thinking that he did think her dull.
To-day she sat by the window, looking out over the ice. The boys, dismissed from their bench, had, with the sagacity of the dogs, gone immediately to the kitchen. The soft voice of Tita was repeating something which sounded like a litany to the Virgin, full of mystic phrases, a selection made by the child herself, the priest requiring no such recitation, but listening, as usual, patiently, with his eyes half closed, as the old-time school-teacher listened to Wirt's description of Blennerhasset's Island. Père Michaux had no mystical tendencies. His life was too busy; in the winter it was too cold, and in the summer the sunshine was too brilliant, on his Northern island, for mystical thoughts. At present, through Tita's recitation, his mind was occupied with a poor fisherman's family over on the mainland, to whom on the morrow he was going to send assistance. The three boys came round on the outside, and peered through the windows to see whether the lesson was finished. Anne ordered them back by gesture, for they were bareheaded, and their little faces red with the cold. But they pressed their noses against the panes, glared at Tita, and shook their fists. "It's all ready," they said, in sepulchral tones, putting their mouths to the crack under the sash, "and it's a pudding. Tell her to hurry up, Annet."
But Tita's murmuring voice went steadily on, and the Protestant sister would not interrupt the little Catholic's recitation; she shook her head at the boys, and motioned to them to go back to the kitchen. But they danced up and down to warm themselves, rubbed their little red ears with their hands, and then returned to the crack, and roared in chorus, "Tell her to hurry up; we shall not have time to eat it."
"True," said Père Michaux, overhearing this triple remonstrance. "That will do for to-day, Tita."
"But I have not finished, my father."
"Another time, child."
"I shall recite it, then, at the next lesson, and learn besides as much more; and the interruption was not of my making, but a crime of those sacrilegious boys," said Tita, gathering her books together. The boys, seeing Père Michaux rise from his chair, ran back round the house to announce the tidings to Pierre; the priest came forward to the window.
"That is the mail-train, is it not?" said Anne, looking at a black spot coming up the Strait from the east.
"It is due," said Père Michaux; "but the weather has been so cold that I hardly expected it to-day." He took down a spy-glass, and looked at the moving speck. "Yes, it is the train. I can see the dogs, and Denis himself. I will go over to the village with you, I think. I expect letters."
Père Michaux's correspondence was large. From many a college and mission station came letters to this hermit of the North, on subjects as various as the writers: the flora of the region, its mineralogy, the Indians and their history, the lost grave of Father Marquette (in these later days said to have been found), the legends of the fur-trading times, the existing commerce of the lakes, the fisheries, and kindred subjects were mixed with discussions kept up with fellow Latin and Greek scholars exiled at far-off Southern stations, with games of chess played by letter, with recipes for sauces, and with humorous skirmishing with New York priests on topics of the day, in which the Northern hermit often had the best of it.