“Well, we’ll see. If Adrian had not come, maybe my uncle would never have told me all he has. The letter was written, you know that, because he feared he might not live to tell it with his lips. And even when he was getting better he thought I still should learn the truth, and the written pages held it all. I’m so glad I know. Oh! Angelique, think! How happy, how happy we shall be when my father comes home!”
“’Tis that bad Pierre who should be comin’, yes. Wait till I get my hands about his ears.”
“Pierre’s too big to have his ears boxed. I don’t wonder he hates it. I think I would—would box back again if anybody treated me to that indignity.”
“Pst. Pouf! you are you, and Pierre is Pierre; and as long as he is in the world and I am, if his ears need boxin’, I shall box them. I, his mother.”
“Oh! very well. Suit yourself. But now, Angelique!”
“Well? I must go set the churn. Yes, I’ve wasted too much time, already, bein’ taught my manners by a chit of a thing like you. Yes. I have so. Indeed, yes.”
“Come, Angelique. Be good. When you were young, and lived in the towns, did the girls who went a-journeying wear bonnets?”
“Did they not? And the good Book that the master reads o’ nights, sayin’ the women must cover their heads. Hmm. I’ve thought a many time how his readin’ and his rearin’ didn’t go hand in glove. Bonnets, indeed! Have I not the very one I wore when I came to Peace Island. A charmin’ thing, all green ribbons and red roses. I shall wear it again, to my Pierre’s weddin’. ’Tis for that I’ve been savin’ it. And, well, because a body has no need to wear out bonnets on this bit of land in water. No.”
But Angelique was a true woman; and once upon the subject of dress her mind refused to be drawn thence. She recalled items of what had been her own trousseau, ignoring Margot’s ridicule of the clumsy Pierre as a bridegroom, and even her assertion that: “I should pity his wife, for I expect her ears would have to be boxed, also.”