"There is,—they even make wheels."
"But the outside world does not know that. The train conductor told that if anything went wrong with my bicycle, I would have to send it to Yarmouth."
"The outside world does not know of many things that exist in Clare. Will you get into the buggy, mademoiselle? I will attend to this."
Bidiane meekly ensconced herself under the hood, and took the reins in her hands. "What are you going to do with the remains?" she asked, when Agapit put the injured wheel in beside her.
"We might leave them at Madame LeBlanc's," and he pointed to a white house in the distance. "She will send them to you by some passing cart."
"That is a good plan,—she is quite a friend of mine."
"I will go on foot, if you will drive my horse."
They at once set out, Bidiane driving, and Agapit walking silently along the grassy path at the side of the road.
The day was tranquil, charming, and a perfect specimen of "the divine weather" that Saint-Mary's Bay is said to enjoy in summer. Earlier in the afternoon there had been a soft roll of pearl gray fog on the Bay, in and out of which the schooners had been slipping like phantom ships. Now it had cleared away, and the long blue sweep of water was open to them. They could plainly see the opposite shores of long Digby Neck,—each fisherman's cottage, each comfortable farmhouse, each bit of forest sloping to the water's edge. Over these hills hung the sun, hot and glowing, as a sun should be in haying time. On Digby Neck the people were probably making hay. Here about them there had been a general desertion of the houses for work in the fields. Men, women, and children were up on the slopes on their left, and down on the banks on their right, the women's cotton dresses shining in gay spots of color against the green foliage of the evergreen and hardwood trees that grew singly or in groups about the extensive fields of grass.
Madame LeBlanc was not at home, so Agapit pinned a note to the bicycle, and left it standing outside her front gate with the comfortable assurance that, although it might be the object of curious glances, no one would touch it until the return of the mistress of the house.