"My father is getting a fortune out of them. He has a large tract of land thereabout. If there should be peace for years there will be great prosperity, and Detroit will have her share. It has not changed much except about the river front. Do you like the Americans for neighbors as well as the English?"
Madame gave a little shrug. "They do not spend their money so readily, my husband says."
"They have less to spend," with a short laugh. "Some of the best English families are gone. I met them at Quebec. Ah, Madame, there is a town for you!" and his eyes sparkled.
"It is very gay, I suppose," subjoined Rose.
"Gay and prosperous. Mam'selle, you should be taken there once to show them how Detroit maids bloom. There is much driving about, while here--"
"The town spreads outside. There are some American farmers, but their methods are wild and queer."
"You have a fine son, Madame, and a daughter married, I hear. Mam'selle, are many of the neighborhood girls mated?"
"Oh, a dozen or so," laughed Rose. "But--let me see, the wild little thing, Jeanne Angelot, that used to amuse the children by her pranks, still roams the woods with her Pani woman."
"Then she has not found a lover?" carelessly.
"She plays too much with them, Monsieur. It is every little while a new one. She settles to nothing, and I think the schooling and the money did her harm. But there was no one in authority, and it is not even as if M. Loisel had a wife, you see;" explained Madame, with emphasis.
"The money?" raising his brows, curiously.
"Oh, it was a little M. Bellestre left," and a fine bit of scorn crossed Madame's face. "There was some gossip over it. She has too much liberty, but there is no one to say a word, and she goes to the heretic chapel since Father Rameau has been up North. He comes back this autumn. Father Gilbert is very good, but he is more for the new people and the home for the sisters. There are some to come from the Ursuline convent at Montreal, I hear."
Marsac was not interested in the nuns. After a modicum of judicious praise to Madame, he departed, promising to come in again.
When a week had elapsed and he had not seen Jeanne he was more than piqued, he was angry. Then he bethought himself of the Protestant chapel. Pani could not bring herself to enter it, but Jeanne had found a pleasing and devoted American woman who came in every Sunday and they met at a point convenient to both. Pani walked to this trysting spot for her darling.
