t'ing!"

"Why, no, Jules, she couldn't sell your real estate!" the former owner declared. "She would only have a life interest in your share."

"You say she couldn't sell it?"

"No. She would have nothing but a life interest."

"She have only life interest? By gar! I t'ink I pay somebody twenty dollar to kill her!"

But lacking both twenty dollars and determination, he lived peaceably with Thérèse until she died a natural death, on that occasion proudly doing his whole duty as a man and a mourner.

Remembering these affairs, which had not been kept secret from anybody on the island, Clethera spoke out under conviction.

"Honoré, it a scandal' t'ing, to get marry."

"Me, I t'ink so too," assented Honoré.

"Jules McCarty have disgrace' his son!"

"Melinda Crée," retorted Honoré, obliged to defend his own, "she take a little 'usban' honly nineteen."

"She 'ave no chance like Jules; she is oblige' to wait and take what invite her."

The voices of children from other quarter-breed cottages, playing along the beach, added cheer to the sweet darkness. Clethera and Honoré sat silently enjoying each other's company, unconscious that their aboriginal forefathers had courted in that manner, sitting under arbors of branches.

"Why do peop' want to get marry?" propound ed Clethera.

"I don't know," said Honoré.

"Me, if some man hask me, I box his ear! I have know you all my life—but don' you never hask me to get marry!"

"I not such a fool," heartily responded Honoré. "You and me, we have seen de folly. I not form de habit, like Jules."

"But what we do, Honoré, to keep dat Jules and dat Melinda apart?"

Though they discussed many plans, the sequel showed that nothing effectual could be done. All their traditions and instincts were against making themselves disagreeable or showing discourtesy to their elders. The young man's French and Irish and Chippewa blood, and the young girl's French and Crée blood exhausted all their inherited diplomacy. But as steadily as the waters set like a strong tide through the strait, in spite of wind which combed them to ridging foam, the rapid courtship of age went on.

In carrying laundered clothing through the village street, Melinda Crée was carefully chaperoned by her granddaughter, and Honoré kept Jules under orders in the boat. But of early mornings and late twilights there was no restraining the twittering widower.

"Melinda 'tend to her work and is behave if Jules let her alone," Clethera reported to Honoré. "But he slip around de garden and talk over de back fence, and he is by de ironing-board de minute my back is turn'! If he belong to me, I could 'mos' whip him!"

"Jules McCarty," declared Honoré, with some bitterness, "when he fix his min' to marry some more, he is not turn' if he is hexcommunicate'!"

Jules, indeed, became so bold that he crowded across the stile through the very conferences of the pair united to prevent him; and his loud voice could be heard beside Melinda's ironing-board, proclaiming in the manner of a callow young suitor.

"Some peop' like separate us, Melinda, but we not let them."

The conflict of Honoré and Clethera with Jules and Melinda ended one day in August. There had been no domestic clamor in this silent grapple of forces. The young man used no argument except maxims and morals and a tightening of authority; the young girl permitted neither neighboring maids nor the duties of religion to lure her off guard. It may be said of any French half-breed that he has all the instincts of gentility except an inclination to lying, and that arises from excessive politeness.

Honoré came to the fence at noon and called Clethera. In his excitement he crossed the stile and stood on her premises.

"It no use, Clethera. Jules have tell me this morning he have arrange' de marriage."

Clethera glanced behind her at the house she called home, and threw herself in Honoré's arms, as she had often