"I do not think Monsieur Reece Zhone is for me," said Angelique, with intuitive avoidance of Colonel Menard's name; Peggy cared nothing for the fate of Colonel Menard. "Indeed, I believe his mind dwells more on his sister now than on any one else." "I hate people's relations!" cried Peggy brutally; "especially their sick relations. I couldn't run every evening to pet Maria Jones and feed her pap." "I do not pet her nor feed her pap," declared Angelique, put on the defensive. "Don't be a little beast, Peggy," she added in French. "I see how it is: you are going to take him. The man who needs a bug in his ear worse than any other man in the Territory will never be handed over to me to get it. But let me tell you, you will have your hands full with Rice Jones. This Welsh-English stock is not soft stuff to manage. When he makes that line with his lips that looks like a red-hot razor edge, his poor wife will wish to leave this earth and take to the bluffs." "You appear to think a great deal about Monsieur Reece Zhone and his future wife," said Angelique mischievously. "I know what you mean," said Peggy defiantly, "and we may as well have it out now as any time. If you throw him at me, I shall quarrel with you. I detest Rice Jones. He makes me crosser than any other person in the world." "How can you detest a man like that? I am almost afraid of him. He has a wonderful force. It is a great thing at his age to be elected to the National Assembly as the leader of his party in the Territory." "I am not afraid of him," said Peggy, with a note of pride. "No,--for I have sometimes thought, Peggy, that Monsieur Reece Zhone and you were made for each other." Peggy Morrison sneered. Her nervous laughter, however, had a sound of jubilation. The talk stopped there. They could see fog rising like a smoke from the earth, gradually making distant indistinct objects an obliterated memory, and filling the place where the garden had been. "We must go in and call for candles," said Angelique. "No," said Peggy, turning on the broad sill and stretching herself along it, "let me lay my head in your lap and watch that lovely mist come up like a dream. It makes me feel happy. You are a good girl, Angelique." PART THIRD. THE RISING. Father Baby's part in the common fields lay on the Mississippi side of the peninsula, quite three miles from town. The common fields as an entire tract belonged to the community of Kaskaskia; no individual held any purchased or transferable right in them. Each man who wished to could claim his proportion of acres and plant any crop he pleased, year after year. He paid no rent, but neither did he hold any fee in the land. Early on rainy summer mornings, the friar loved to hoist his capote on the cord, and tramp, bare-legged, out to his two-acre farm, leaving his slave, with a few small coins in the till, to keep shop should any customer forestall his return.