The melody was of a quiet, haunting strangeness, and from the end of the words “Thou who hast heart so gay,” the maiden perfected it by interweaving an exquisite contralto into the chorus,

Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway.

In this fashion was Chrysler delivered at the Manoir, and when Chamilly asked him “Where have you been-this evening?” as he entered the grounds, he answered, “In Arcadia!”

CHAPTER XXI.

DELIVER US FROM THE EVIL ONE.

“Aie! cela ressemble un peu a certaine fable celebre, dont la morale se resume ceci ne comptez pas sans votre hote.”

—­BENJAMIN SULTE

“St. Gregory the Great!  Here comes the Small-pox!” exclaimed Zotique, as he and Chamilly, with their guest, were off behind the Manoir, and standing by the weather-worn Chapel in the hayfields, which served as the tomb of the first Haviland, “the Protestant Seigneur.”

The name “Picault” offered itself so readily to the pun of “Picotte,”—­Small-pox,—­that the jest had become almost a usage.

Startled by Zotique’s exclamation, Mr Chrysler looked from the commemorative table on the Chapel’s side (whose rivulet of eulogies he was reading line by line), towards the pine-walk round the Manoir, whence a distant figure was sauntering towards them along the path, meditatively smoking a cigar.

“That’s a fact,” exclaimed Chamilly, straining his eyes towards the figure; and the three looked at each other in astonishment.  “Has he actually the enterprise to try me again?  Or what can he want?”

“I can answer you,” the veracious Zotique undertook, “my eyes are good.—­He is smiling fully a second hundred thousand.”

“That is courage after what I gave him for the first.”

“It is doubtless, then, glory:—­say Member of the Council.”

“Did I ever tell you of the last time he came to me, and offered not only that Membership, but finally advanced to the Presidency of it.  Imagine the recklessness of the Province’s interests—­A President of the Council at twenty-four years!  More than that, if I wished for active glory, he would give either the local Premiership, or undertake to combine the French parties at Ottawa, and put me at their head, with a surety of being Premier of the whole country.  And this again for a youth of twenty-four years!—­He tried to flatter me that I was a Pitt or a Napoleon.  And I answered, that no man guilty of such a compact could be either.”

“You will do it without him,” replied Zotique, confidently.

Chrysler looked closely at the approaching figure, growing larger and clearer.

“Where is he Member for?” he asked.

“Member for Hoang-ho in partibus infidelium,” replied Zotique, sarcastically.

Picault sauntered up with a smile of unfaltering genial sang-froid, bowed, removed his cigar, and addressed them.