"You forget," replied Haviland. "I have always this faithful little legion of Dormillière. Has not Lareau said," and he smiled half in joke, half seriously, "that we are a people of ideals."
They returned to their fishing in silence, broken by a meditative query now and then from Chrysler, but no movement of curiosity from the Bonhomme.
CHAPTER XXVII.
JOSEPHTE.
"Sister Elisâ," lisped Rudolphe, the tiny boy. (In the garden the children of the farmer of the domain, and of Pierre, were playing together.) "Mr. Ch'ysl' has told me he was a Canadian."
"Did he say so, mon fin?" asked motherly ten-year-old Elisâ, picking a "belle p'tite" flower for the little fellow, whom she held by the hand.
"He's not Canadian," put in the large boy, Henri, with contempt befitting his twelve years of experience. "Because he doesn't speak French. He's an English."
"Speaking French don't make a Canadian," answered Elisâ. "The Honorable says every one who is native in Canada is a Canadian, speak he French, speak he English."
"O, well—the Honorable—the Honorable—" retorted Henri, testily.
While this went on, the voice of Josephte could be heard singing low and happy, in a corner of the walk of pines which surrounded the garden and the back of the grounds: