"Is naïveté justifiable under those circumstances, mignonne?"
"Hush,—she will hear you. Now what does that boy want, I wonder. Just see him scampering up the road."
He wished to see her, and was soon stumbling through a verbal message. Bidiane kindly but firmly followed him in it, and, stopping him whenever he used a corrupted French word, made him substitute another for it.
"No, Raoul, not j'étions but j'étais" (I was). "Petit mieux" (a little better), "not p'tit mieux. La rue not la street. Ces jeunes demoiselles" (those young ladies), "not ces jeunes ladies."
"They are so careless, these Acadiens of ours," she said, turning to Agapit, with a despairing gesture. "This boy knows good French, yet he speaks the impure. Why do his people say becker for baiser" (kiss) "and gueule for bouche" (mouth) "and échine for dos" (back)? "It is so vulgar!"
"Patience," muttered Agapit, "what does he wish?"
"His sister Lucie wants you and me to go up to Grosses Coques this evening to supper. Some of the D'Entremonts are coming from Pubnico. There will be a big wagon filled with straw, and all the young people from here are going, Raoul says. It will be fun; will you go?"
"Yes, if it will please you."
"It will," and she turned to the boy. "Run home, Raoul, and tell Lucie that we accept her invitation. Thou art not vexed with me for correcting thee?"
"Nenni" (no), said the child, displaying a dimple in his cheek.