Before the day was many hours older, Agapit was driving his white horse into the inn yard.
There seemed to be more people about the house then there usually were, and Bidiane, who stood at the side door, was handing a long paper parcel to a man. "Take it away," Agapit heard her say, in peremptory tones; "don't you open it here."
The Acadien to whom she was talking happened to be, Agapit knew, a ne'er-do-weel. He shuffled away, when he caught sight of the young lawyer, but Bidiane ran delightedly towards him. "Oh, Mr. LeNoir, you are as welcome as Mayflowers in April!"
Her face was flushed, there were faint dark circles around the light brown eyes that harmonized so much better with her red hair than blue ones would have done. The sun shone down into these eyes, emphasizing this harmony between them and the hair, and Agapit, looking deeply into them, forgot immediately the mentor's part that he was to act, and clasped her warmly and approvingly by the hand.
"Come in," she said; but Agapit, who would never sit in the house if it were possible to stay out-of-doors, conducted her to one of the rustic seats by the croquet lawn. He sat down, and she perched in the hammock, sitting on one foot, swinging the other, and overwhelming him with questions about his visit to Halifax.
"And what have you been doing with yourself since I have been away?" he asked, with a hypocritical assumption of ignorance.
"You know very well what I have been doing," she said, rapidly. "Did not I see Rose driving in to call on you this morning? And you have come down to scold me. I understand you perfectly; you cannot deceive me."
Agapit was silent, quite overcome by this mark of feminine insight.
"I will never do it again," she went on, "but I am going to see this through. It is such fun—'Claude,' said my aunt to her husband, when we first decided to make bombance, 'what politics do you belong to?' 'I am a Conservative,' he said; because, you know, my aunt has always told him to vote as the English people about him did. She has known nothing of politics. 'No, you are not,' she replied, 'you are a Liberal;' and Claudine and I nearly exploded with laughter to hear her trying to convince him that he must be a Liberal like our good French Premier, and that he must endeavor to drive the Conservative candidate out. Claude said, 'But we have always been Conservatives, and our house is to be their meeting-place on the day of election.' 'It is the meeting-place for the Liberals,' said my aunt. But Claude would not give in, so he and his party will have the laundry, while we will have the parlor; but I can tell you a secret," and she leaned forward and whispered, "Claude will vote for the Liberal man. Mirabelle Marie will see to that."
"You say Liberal man,—there are two—"