"Monsieur covers me with confusion!" and the little sweet told the
truth. But it was a confusion very exquisite to her. It was like
entrancing music in her veins; and gave her a delightful delirium
about the temples. How fair all the glorious great round of the
night, and the broad earth lit by the moon, seemed to her now, with
the music of his words absorbing her body and soul. Everything was
transfigured by a holy beauty, for Love had sanctified it, and
clothed it in his own mystic and beautiful garments. It was with poor
Marie, then, as it has some time or other been with us all: when
every bird that sang, every leaf that whispered, had in its tone a
cadence caught from the one loved voice. I have seen the steeple
strain, and rock, and heard the bells peal out in all their
clangorous melody, and I have fancied that this delirious ecstacy of
sound that bathed the earth and went up to heaven was the voice of
one sweet girl with dimples and sea-green eyes.
The mischievous young Stephens had grown more serious than Annette
had ever seen him before.
"But, my little girl, what is to become of you during this period of
tumult. It may continue long, and it is hard to say what the chances
of war may have in store for your father."
"I know not; though my heart is with the cause of my father and of
his people, yet, I do not desire to see them triumph over your
people. A government under the hateful chief would be intolerable;
and whenever I can warn the white soldiers of danger, I shall do it."
"What a hero you are Annette! How different from what I supposed on
that day when I saw you sitting in your canoe in the midst of the
racing flood."
She was glad that Monsieur held what she had done in such high regard.
"Why dear girl, the story of your bravery will be told by the
writers of books throughout all Christendom. Ah, Annette, I shall be
so lonely when you go from me!"
Stephens was all the while growing more serious, and even becoming
pathetic, which is a sign of something very delicious, and not
uncommon, when you are travelling under a bewitching moon in company
with a more bewitching maiden.
But there was so much mischief in his nature that he would rebound
at any moment from a mood of pathos or seriousness to one of levity.
"Well, Annette," and he leaned yearningly towards her, "when you
leave me to take the chances of this tumultuous time, the greatest
light that I have known will have gone out of my life."
"When I am absent from Monsieur, perhaps he never thinks of me."