"Oh! Mamsey, you are such fun, and you never hide any more. You're really getting to be handsome. Do you know Mr. Alton, Mr. Richard Alton, says he'd like to paint you as 'The Woman With the Hoe.' He says you'd show the man—I don't know who he means—what a hoe can do for the right sort."
"Well, Mr. Richard Alton isn't going to mess me up in his paints. It's an awful waste of time for a full-grown man to make pictures all day. I wonder when he's going home?"
"I wonder?" whispered Donelle.
"We'll never have another boarder like him, child."
"Oh! never, Mamsey."
"I wish he'd stay through the summer. I'd like to fling him in the teeth of Marcel's boarders."
"Oh! Mamsey."
"The Captain says he's all ready for folks now; he's opened sooner because Father Mantelle prophesies an early summer."
Then one night, after everyone was in bed, the River Queen sneaked up to the wharf—there is no other word for her action—and a lone figure, with several bags and a trunk, was deposited.
Jean Duval, who had swung out the lantern from the pole, took charge.