"Monsieur Zhone, do you intend to get married?"
"Certainly," replied the prompt lawyer.
"But why should you want to get married? You have no children."
"I might have some, if I were married," argued Rice.
"But unless you get some you don't need any mother for them. On the contrary, we have great need of a mother in our family."
"I see. You came to take my advice about a stepmother. I have a stepmother myself, and I am the very man to advise you. But suppose you and I agree on the person for the place, and the colonel refuses her?"
The boy looked at him sharply, but there was no trace of raillery on Rice's face.
"You never can tell what the colonel intends to do until he does it, monsieur, but I think he will be glad to get her. The girls—all of us, in fact, think he ought to be satisfied with her."
"You are quite right. I don't know of a finer young woman in Kaskaskia than Miss Peggy Morrison."
"But she isn't the one, Monsieur Zhone. Oh, she wouldn't do at all."