Rose got up, too. "But stay a minute,—hear all. The naughty thing that Bidiane has done is about money, but I will not tell you that. You must question her. This only I can say: my hens are all quite drunk this morning."
"Quite drunk!" said Agapit, and he paused with his arms half in a dust coat that he had taken from a hook on the wall. "What do you mean?"
Rose suffocated a laugh in her throat, and said, seriously, "When Jovite got up this morning, he found them quite weak in their legs. They took no breakfast, they wished only to drink. He had to watch to keep them from falling in the river. Afterwards they went to sleep, and he searched the stable, and found some burnt out matches, where some one had been smoking and sleeping in the barn, also two bottles of whiskey hidden in a barrel where one had broken on some oats that the hens had eaten. So you see the affair becomes serious when men prowl about at night, and open hen-house doors, and are in danger of setting fire to stables."
Agapit made a grimace. He had a lively imagination, and had readily supplied all these details. "I suppose you do not wish to take me back to Sleeping Water?"
Rose hesitated, then said, meekly, "Perhaps it would be better for me not to do it, nor for you to say that I have talked to you. Bidiane speaks plainly, and, though I know she likes me, she is most extremely animated just now. Claudine, you know, spoils her. Also, she avoids me lately,—you will not be too severe with her. It is so loving that she should work for you. I think she hopes to break down some of your prejudice that she says still exists against her."
Rose could not see her cousin's face, for he had abruptly turned his back on her, and was staring out the window.
"You will remember, Agapit," she went on, with gentle persistence; "do not be irritable with her; she cannot endure it just at present."
"And why should I be irritable?" he demanded, suddenly wheeling around. "Is she not doing me a great honor?"
Rose fell back a few steps, and clasped her amazed hands. This transfigured face was a revelation to her. "You, too, Agapit!" she managed to utter.
"Yes, I, too," he said, bravely, while a dull, heavy crimson mantled his cheeks. "I, too, as well as the Poirier boy, and half a dozen others; and why not?"