“May I ask what it is you demand, mademoiselle?” inquired the Abbé, with irony, “if you propose to re-arrange any marriage your relatives make for you.”
“I demand a week between the betrothal and the marriage.”
“A week, mademoiselle!” her uncle laughed. “We who set out must give winter a week’s start of us for such a whim! You will be married to-night or you will return with me to France. I will now send Monsieur de Tonty to you to be received as your future husband.”
“I will scratch him!” exclaimed Barbe, with a flash of perverseness, at which her uncle’s cassocked shoulders shook until he disappeared within doors.
She left the earthwork and went to the entrance side of the fort. There she stood, whispering with a frown,—”Oh, if you please, monsieur, keep your distance! Do not come here as any future husband of mine!”
She had, however, much time in which to prepare her mind before Tonty appeared.
All eyes on the Rock followed him. He shone through the trees, a splendid figure in the gold and white uniform of France, laid aside for years but resumed on this great occasion.
When he came up to Barbe he stopped and folded his arms, saying whimsically,—
“Mademoiselle, I have not the experience to know how one should approach his betrothed. I never was married before.”