"She is adopted," said Alexandre, "but we know no difference. She calls us her parents. Her mother and father are dead, and she makes her home with us since she was a baby. When I get my gold out she shall sing, oh, so beautifully."
"Your gold out?" queried Amy.
"Ah, yes! Back here on my farm, which looks all rocks, there is much gold underneath. I know not how to get it out, but some day I shall find a miner who knows. See!"
From a drawer in the dresser he brought out two pieces of quartz, which he asked the girls to look at carefully. "It is gold underneath, sans doute, and, Mees, if you know a miner in Boston to study this, he could have some of my gold when it is dug out, but as for me I know not how to get it out, and poor Yvonne cannot have her music."
Gradually the girls gathered that Yvonne had a voice "sweeter than an angel's," and that Alexandre had set his heart on giving her a musical education. His plans soared far beyond the Western continent. He would send her to Paris, to Italy, and she should astonish the world. The most of this conversation or monologue took place in the little field back of the house that Alexandre dignified as "my farm." The soil was poor and rocky, and evidently he had hard work to raise the few patches of vegetables needed for his family. There was a tiny orchard,—it had not been an Acadian farm without that. The trees were knotty and scrubby, and Amy was not surprised that the prospect of a gold-mine offered even more than the usual attractions to the visionary Alexandre. But Amy, though she knew nothing of mineralogy, thought it most unlikely that a gold-mine lay hidden beneath the stony surface in which Alexandre had dug a deep, deep hole with a vague idea that it was a shaft. Indeed, Amy felt quite sure that even a mineralogist—for such was the meaning of his "miner"—would give him little encouragement. Yet as she looked at the slender figure of Yvonne walking ahead with Martine, she felt deep sympathy with his ambition.
Evidently Yvonne, in spite of her infirmity, was the pride of the little household. Her print gown of a delicate pink cambric was spotlessly neat, and her white sunbonnet had been laundered with the greatest care. Though much shorter and slighter than Martine, the latter was surprised to find that the little Acadienne was hardly a year younger, and that it was true, as Alexandre said, that she ought soon to have the chance to study—if—and here was the question—if her voice was what he pictured it.
"Miss Amy," murmured Priscilla, half impatiently, "I thought that we came to see the loom."
"Indeed we did, but these people have been so interesting that we have spent too much time out here." Then turning toward their host, who had fallen back, she asked him to show them the loom.
"Ah, yes, with the greatest pleasure,—the loom, and the beautiful quilts that my wife makes, and the lace of Yvonne. The mine did almost make me forget, but we shall go in quick."
When they were again in the house he led them up a steep flight of stairs to an unfinished room, with great rafters overhead and two small windows admitting little light.