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.
Bells were ringing, flags were flying, every road and lane was filled with caleches and wagons, and every dog that could draw a cart pulled big and little people, the old and the blind and the mendicant, the happy and the sour, to the village, where there were to be sports and speeches, races upon the river, and a review of the militia, arranged by the member of the Legislature for the Chaudiere-half of the county. French soldiers in English red coats and carrying British flags were straggling along the roads to join the battalion at the volunteers' camp three miles from the town, and singing: