The relations between Le Ber and the Marquise de Monesthrol had at one time furnished gossip to the small community at Ville Marie, which, during the long winter months cut off from the world, had little but scandal to serve as a diversion. On his return from a voyage to France the merchant was accompanied by the Marquise (a perfect type of the _grande dame_ of the period), a child two years old, and a young attendant. Even to his closest friends Le Ber had never offered further explanation than to say that in his youth he had been under obligations to Madame de Monesthrol’s family, and that on his return to France, finding her widowed and in trouble, he had been proud to offer her a home for herself and her orphan niece in the New World. The lady on her part always warmly acknowledged her indebtedness to the Canadian merchant. People coming out from France brought rumors of great pecuniary trouble which had fallen upon Madame’s branch of the family, and of a terrible tragedy which had deprived her of her husband; but the most rampant curiosity sank abashed before the lady’s dignified grace, while the maid Nanon’s sharp tongue and ready wit were capable of repulsing all intrusive questions. Though Diane persisted in calling Le Ber her uncle, and in claiming his sons as cousins, it was plain that no tie of blood existed between them. The line of demarcation between patrician and plebeian was very clearly defined in those days; no one could doubt the claim of the de Monesthrols to noble birth—indeed the family was one of the most noble and powerful of the kingdom of France—while Le Ber boasted of no pretension higher than the respectable _bourgeoisie_. Nor was the obligation altogether on one side. It was whispered that even in her fallen fortunes the Marquise retained considerable influence at Court, that the appointment of Le Ber’s second son as one of the Dauphin’s pages, and later his commission in the Marines, had been due to her influence, and that the patent of nobility upon which the trader had set his heart would yet be obtained by the same favor. While anxious to obtain a high place for himself and his children in the heavenly kingdom, Le Ber’s affections had by no means become alienated from the affairs of this world. It was conjectured by those who knew him best that a sincere reverence for rank was one of his prominent traits. As his daughter’s aspirations after saintliness conferred upon him an especial distinction with the ecclesiastical authorities, so the Marquise’s sojourn beneath his roof bestowed upon his home a stamp of fashion and exclusiveness to which he otherwise would have had no pretension. A patent of nobility had, some time before, been conferred upon his brother-in-law, Charles le Moyne, and it was bitter to the ambitious man that his own sons should be debarred from wearing the sword with which his nephews swaggered so gallantly.