“It is just sunrise. See; God has been good,” answered the Cure, drawing open the blind and letting in the first golden rays.
Rosalie entered the room with a cup of tea, and came towards the bed.
Old Margot looked at the girl, at the tea, and then at the Cure.
“Drink the tea for me, Rosalie,” she whispered. Rosalie did as she was asked.
She looked round feebly; her eyes were growing filmy. “I never gave—so much—trouble—before,” she managed to say. “I never had—so much—attention.... I can keep—a secret too,” she said, setting her lips feebly with pride. “But I—never—had—so much—attention—before; have I—Rosalie?”
Rosalie did not need to answer, for the woman was gone. The crowning interest of her life had come all at the last moment, as it were, and she had gone away almost gladly and with a kind of pride.
Rosalie also had a hidden pride: the secret was now her very own—hers and M’sieu’s.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE SEIGNEUR TAKES A HAND IN THE GAME
It was St. Jean Baptiste’s day, and French Canada was en fete. Every seigneur, every cure, every doctor, every notary—the chief figures in a parish—and every habitant was bent for a happy holiday, dressed in his best clothes, moved in his best spirits, in the sweet summer weather.