" The tiny high voice had the thrust of an insect's
stinger.
"If she were alive, madame, I could not now have the honor of asking for
Mademoiselle Angelique's hand."
The dimpling grooves in his cheeks did not escape tante-gra'mere's black
eyes.
"I do not like widowers," she mused.
"Nor do I," responded the colonel.
"Poor Therese might have been alive to-day, if she had not married you."
"Possibly, madame."
"And you have seven children?"
"Four, madame."
"On the whole, I like young men."
"Then you reject my suit?" observed the unmoved wooer.
"I do not reject it, and I do not accept it, monsieur the colonel. I
consider it."
This gracious promise of neutrality Colonel Menard carried away with him
without again seeing Angelique; and he made his way through the streets
of Kaskaskia, unconscious that his little son was following Rice Jones
about with the invincible persistence of a Menard.
Young Pierre had been allowed to ride into the capital this thronging
day under charge of his father's body-servant and Jean Lozier.
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