"I never shall," declared Jenieve. "I have seen the folly of it."
"You never have been young," complained Mama Lalotte. "You don't know how a young person feels.
"I let you go to the dances," argued Jenieve. "You have as good a time as any woman on the island. But old Michel Pensonneau," she added sternly, "is not settling down to smoke his pipe for the remainder of his life on this doorstep."
"Monsieur Pensonneau is not old."
"Do you take up for him, Mama Lalotte, in spite of me?" In the girl's rich brunette face the scarlet of the cheeks deepened. "Am I not more to you than Michel Pensonneau or any other engagé? He is old; he is past forty. Would I call him old if he were no more than twenty?"
"Every one cannot be only twenty and a young agent," retorted her elder; and Jenieve's ears and throat reddened, also.
"Have I not done my best for you and the boys? Do you think it does not hurt me to be severe with you?"
Mama Lalotte flounced around on her stool, but made no reply. She saw peeping and smiling at the edge of the door a neighbor's face, that encouraged her insubordinations. Its broad, good-natured upper lip thinly veiled with hairs, its fleshy eyelids and thick brows, expressed a strength which she had not, yet would gladly imitate.
"Jenieve Lalotte," spoke the neighbor, "before you finish whipping your mother you had better run and whip the boys. They are throwing their shoes in the lake."
"Their shoes!" Jenieve cried, and she scarcely looked at Jean Bati'
McClure's wife, but darted outdoors along the beach.