When Gaspard woke he heard a sound of an eager chattering voice. He rubbed his limbs and stretched himself, looked down on his red sash and then saw a withered red rose that he tossed in the fire. “Ah, little one, you are as blithe as a bee,” was his greeting. “Oh, Uncle Gaspard, you have on your ball clothes. When did you come home?” she asked. “I dropped asleep in them. I am old and stiff this morning. I tumbled down on a pile of skins and stayed there.” “You don’t look very old. And—are you a king now?” rather curiously. “I must be two weeks hence. Then I resign my sceptre, and become an ordinary person.” “And Mère Lunde said you had to choose a new queen.” There was a touch of elation in her voice. “That is so. And I told Ma’m’selle Guion I should look out for the very prettiest girl. I shall be thinking all the time.” “I wish you could take Wawataysee. She is the prettiest of anybody, and the sweetest.” “And she has already chosen her king for life.” “The breakfast will get cold,” warned Mère Lunde. There were more snows, days when you could hardly stir out and paths had to be shovelled. The next ball night it stormed, but Renée did not care to go, because M. and Madame Marchand were staying all night and they would play games and have parched corn and cakes and spiced drinks. Wawataysee would sing, too. And though the songs were odd, she had an exquisite voice, and she could imitate almost any bird, as well as the wind flying and shrieking through the trees, and then softening with sounds of spring. Sometimes they danced together, and it was a sight to behold, the very impersonation of grace; soft, languid mazes at first and then warming into flying sprites of the forest. And how Renée’s eyes shone and her cheeks blossomed, while the little moccasined feet made no more sound than a mouse creeping about. There was no especial carnival at St. Louis, perhaps a little more gayety than usual, and the dances winding up at midnight. Nearly every one went to church the next morning, listened to the prayers reverently, had a small bit of ashes dropped on his or her head, went home and fasted the rest of the day. But Lent was not very strictly kept, and the maids were preparing for Easter weddings. “It is strange,” said grandaunt Guion, “that Barbe has no lover. She is too giddy, too much of a coquette. She will be left behind. And she is too pretty to turn into an old maid. Guion girls were not apt to hang on hand.” CHAPTER VIII THE SURPRISE There was, it is true, a side not so simple and wholesome, and this had been gathering slowly since the advent of the governor. More drunken men were seen about the levee. There was talk of regular orgies taking place at the government house, and the more thoughtful men, like the Chouteaus, the Guerins, the Guions, and the Lestourniers, had to work hard to get the fortifications in any shape, and the improvements made were mostly done by private citizens.