Kindly ridicule excited by the incongruous things she did, passed over without touching her.  She was enveloped in a cloud, a thick case guarding overtaxed mind and body, and shutting them in its pellucid chrysalis.  The Almighty arms were resting her on a mountain of vision.  She had forgot how to weep.  She was remembering how to laugh.

The more I thought about it the less endurable it became to have her dependent upon the Grignons.  My business affairs with Pierre Grignon made it possible to transfer her obligations to my account.  The hospitable man and his wife objected, but when they saw how I took it to heart, gave me my way.  I told them I wished her to be regarded as my wife, for I should never have another; and while it might remain impossible for her to marry me, on my part I was bound to her.

“You are young, M’s’r Williams,” said Madame Ursule.  “You have a long life before you.  A man wants comfort in his house.  And if he makes wealth, he needs a hand that knows how to distribute and how to save.  She could never go to your home as she is.”

“I know it, madame.”

“You will change your mind about a wife.”

“Madame, I have not changed my mind since I first wanted her.  It is not a mind that changes.”

“Well, that’s unusual.  Young men are often fickle.  You never made proposals for her?”

“I did, madame, after her husband died.”

“But she was still a wife—­the wife of an old man—­in the Pigeon Roost settlement.”

“Her father married her to a cousin nearly as old as himself, when she was a child.  Her husband was reported dead while he was in hiding.  She herself thought, and so did her friends, that he was dead.”

“I see.  Eh! these girls married to old men!  Madame Jordan told me Madeleine’s husband was very fretful.  He kept himself like silk, and scarcely let the wind blow upon him for fear of injuring his health.  When other men were out toiling at the clearings, he sat in his house to avoid getting chills and fever in the sun.  It was well for her that she had a faithful servant.  Madeleine and the servant kept the family with their garden and corn field.  They never tasted wild meat unless the other settlers brought them venison.  Madame Jordan said they always returned a present of herbs and vegetables from their garden.  It grew for them better than any other garden in the settlement.  Once the old man did go out with a hunting party, and got lost.  The men searched for him three days, and found him curled up in a hollow tree, waiting to be brought in.  They carried him home on a litter and he popped his head into the door and said:  ‘Here I am, child!  You can’t kill me!’”

“What did Madame de Ferrier say?”

“Nothing.  She made a child of him, as if he were her son.  He was in his second childhood, no doubt.  And Madame Jordan said she appeared to hold herself accountable for the losses and crosses that made him so fretful.  The children of the emigration were brought up to hardship, and accepted everything as their elders could not do.”