The Acadien examined him from head to foot. "Your face is beautifuller than a woman's, but you are poorly built."
Vesper drew up his straight and slender figure. He was not surprised that it did not come up to the Acadien's standard of manly beauty.
"Let us shake hands lest we never meet again," said the old man, so gently, so kindly, and with so much benevolence, that Vesper responded, warmly, "I hope to see you some other time."
"Perhaps you will call. We are but poor, yet if it would please you—"
"I shall be most happy. Where do you live?"
"Near the low down brook, way off there. Demand Antoine à Joe Rimbaut," and, smiling and nodding farewell, the old man moved on.
"A good heart," said Vesper, looking after him.
"Caw, caw," said a solemn voice at his elbow.
He turned around. One of the blackest of crows sat on a garden fence that surrounded a neat pink cottage. The cottage was itself smothered in lilacs, whose fragrant blossoms were in their prime, although the Boston lilacs had long since faded and died.
"Do not be afraid, sir," said a woman in the inevitable handkerchief, who jumped up from a flower bed that she was weeding, "he is quite tame."