"Oh, Jean, Jean! it is plain to see you have an eye in your head as well as a soft place!" ejaculated Babet, recommencing her knitting with fresh vigor, and working off the electricity that was stirring in her.
"I had two eyes in my head when I chose you, Babet, and the soft place was in my heart!" replied Jean, heartily. The compliment was taken with a smile, as it deserved to be. "Look you, Babet, I would not give this pinch of snuff," said Jean, raising his thumb and two fingers holding a good dose of the pungent dust,--"I would not give this pinch of snuff for any young fellow who could be indifferent to the charms of such a pretty lass as Angélique des Meloises!"
"Well, I am glad you did not tell the Seigneur de Repentigny that she had crossed the ferry and gone--not to look for him, I'll be bound! I will tell you something by and by, Jean, if you will come in and eat your dinner; I have something you like."
"What is it, Babet?" Jean was, after all, more curious about his dinner than about the fair lady.
"Oh, something you like--that is a wife's secret: keep the stomach of a man warm, and his heart will never grow cold. What say you to fried eels?"
"Bravo!" cried the gay old boatman, as he sang,
"'Ah! ah! ah! frit à l'huile, Frit au beurre et à l'ognon!'"
and the jolly couple danced into their little cottage--no king and queen in Christendom half so happy as they.
The town house of the Lady de Tilly stood on the upper part of the Place d'Armes, a broad, roughly-paved square. The Château of St. Louis, with its massive buildings and high, peaked roofs, filled one side of the square. On the other side, embowered in ancient trees that had escaped the axe of Champlain's hardy followers, stood the old-fashioned Monastery of the Recollets, with its high belfry and broad shady porch, where the monks in gray gowns and sandals sat in summer, reading their breviaries or exchanging salutations with the passers-by, who always had a kind greeting for the brothers of St. Francis.
The mansion of the Lady de Tilly was of stone, spacious and ornate, as became the rank and wealth of the Seigneurs de Tilly. It overlooked the Place d'Armes and the noble gardens of the Château of St. Louis, with a magnificent sweep of the St. Lawrence, flowing majestically under the fortress-crowned cape and the high, wooded hills of Lauzon, the farther side of the river closing the view.