"Yes. But--who told you all this so exactly--your grand'mère herself, or your grandpère?"
"Ah--she, no. I never saw her. And grandpère--no, he was killed before I was born."
"What?"
"Yes, all that I'll come to. This I'm telling now is from my own papa. He had it from grandpère. Grand'mère and Sidney came with friends, a gentleman and his wife, by ship from New York."
"And all put up at Hotel St. Louis?"
"Yes. From there Maud and Sidney began their search. But now, first, about that speculating in slaves: those two Théophiles, first the father, then both, hated slavery. 'Twas by nature and in everything that they were radical. Their friends knew that, even when they only said, 'Oh, you are extreme!' or 'Those Chapdelaines are extremist.' In those years from about eighteen-forty to 'sixty----"
"When the slavery question was about to blaze----"
"Yes--they voted Whig. That was the most antislavery they could vote and stay here. But under the rose they said: 'All right! extremist, yet Whig; we'll be extreme Whig of a new kind. We'll trade in slaves.'"
Chester laughed. "I begin to see," he said, and by a sidelong glance bade Aline note the rapt attention of Cupid. Her answering smile was so confidential that his heart leaped.
"I'll tell you by and by about that also," she murmured, and then resumed: "While grandpère was yet a boy his father had begun that, that slave-buying. On that auction-block he would often see a slave about to be sold much below value, or whose value might easily be increased by training to some trade. You see?--blacksmith, lady's maid, cook, hair-dresser, engine-driver, butler?"