Madelon slept soundly that night, and when she woke on the morning of what was to have been her wedding-day felt as if she had a glimpse of her own self again, after a long dream in which she had been changed and lost.  Richard went early to tell the woman who had been engaged to do the housework that she need not come for a month.  After breakfast her father and brothers all went away, and she was alone in the house.  She went about her work singing for the first time for weeks.  She raised her voice high in a gay ditty which was then in vogue, entitled “The Knight Errant”: 

  “It was Dennis the young and brave
    Was bound for Palestine;
  But first he made his orisons
    Before Saint Mary’s shrine.

  “‘And grant, immortal Queen of Heaven,’
    Was still the soldier’s prayer,
  ’That I may prove the bravest knight
    And love the fairest fair.’”

So sang Madelon, loud and sweet, as she tidied the kitchen.  There were four verses, and she was on the last when the door opened stealthily and her granduncle, old Luke Basset, entered.  Her back was towards him, and she did not see or hear him.

He waited, his old face fixed in a sly grin, standing unsteadily on his shaking old legs, and holding to the back of a chair for support, until Madelon sang at the close of the song,

  “And honored be the bravest brave,
    Beloved the fairest fair,”

and stopped.  Then he spoke. “’Tain’t so, then, I s’pose,” said he, and his voice seemed to crack with sly suggestiveness.

Madelon faced around on him.  “What isn’t so?” she asked, coldly.  “I didn’t hear you come in.”

Old Luke Basset shuffled stiffly to the hearth and settled into David’s chair.  “Well,” said he, “I heerd in the store just now that your weddin’ was put off, but I s’pose it ain’t so, ’cause you seem to be in sech good sperits.  A gal wouldn’t be singin’ if her weddin’ was put off.”

“Look here, Uncle Luke,” said Madelon.

“Well?”

“My wedding is put off for a month; now that settles it.  I don’t want to say another word about it.”  Madelon went into the pantry.

Luke sent his old voice, shrill and penetrating as a baby’s, after her.  “They say ‘tain’t luck to have a weddin’ put off.  ’Ain’t ye afeard he’ll give ye the slip?”

Madelon made no reply.  There was a rattle of dishes in the pantry.

Old Luke waited a moment; then raised his shrill, infantile voice again.  “If this feller gives ye the slip, ye can jest hang up yer fiddle; ye won’t git t’other one back.  Parson Fair’s gal’s got ’nough fine feathers comin’ from Boston to fit out the Queen of England, they say.”

Madelon said nothing.

“D’ye hear?” called old Luke; but he got no reply.  “Dexter Beers says a hull passel of stuff come up from Boston on the stage yesterday.  Saturday,” persisted old Luke, “Mis’ Beers she see an eend of blue satin a-stickin’ out of one of the bundles.”