The white-headed, red-coated mail-driver, who never flagged in his admiration for Vesper, was just now talking about him. Twice a day during the long five years had Emmanuel de la Rive flashed over the long road to the station. Twice a day had this descendant of the old French nobleman courteously taken off his hat to the woman who kept the station, and then, placing it on his knee, had sat down to discuss calmly and impartially the news of the day with her, in the ten minutes that he allowed himself before the train arrived. He in the village, she at the station, could most agreeably keep the ball of gossip rolling, so that on its way up and down the Bay it might not make too long a tarrying at Sleeping Water.
On this particular July morning he was on his favorite subject. "Has it happened to come to your ears," he said in his shrill, musical voice to Madame Thériault, who, as of old, was rocking a cradle with her foot, and spinning with her hands, "that there is talk of a great scheme that the Englishman has in mind for having cars that will run along the shores of the Bay, without a locomotive?"
"Yes, I have heard."
"It would be a great thing for the Bay, as we are far from these stations in the woods."
"It is my belief that he will some day return, and Rose will then marry him," said the woman, who, true to the traditions of her sex, took a more lively interest in the affairs of the heart than in those connected with means of transportation.
"It is evident that she does not wish to marry now," he said, modestly.
"She lives like a nun. It is incredible; she is young, yet she thinks only of good works."
"At least, her heart is not broken."
"Hearts do not break when one has plenty of money," said Madame Thériault, wisely.
"If it were not for the child, I daresay that she would become a holy woman. Did you hear that the family with typhoid fever can at last leave her house?"