"Why don't you get married yourself?" and she turned an irritated eye upon him.

"I cannot," said Agapit, in sudden calm, and with an inspiration; "the woman that I love does not love me."

"Are you in love?" asked Bidiane, immediately drying her eyes. "Who is she?"

"I cannot tell you."

"Oh, some English girl, I imagine," she said, disdainfully.

"Suppose Mr. Greening could hear you?"

"I am not talking against the English," she retorted, snappishly, "but I should think that you, of all men, would want to marry a woman of your own nation,—the dear little Acadien nation,—the only thing that I love," and she wound up with a despairing sob.

"The girl that I love is an Acadien," said Agapit, in a lower voice, for two men had just driven into the yard.

"Is it Claudine?"