The meat in the larder had all really been given to the hungry censitaires in the kitchen, except a capon from the basse cour of Tilly and a standing pie, the contents of which came from the manorial dovecote. A reef of raspberries, red as corals, gathered on the tangled slopes of Cote a Bonhomme, formed the dessert, with blue whortleberries from Cape Tourment, plums sweet as honey drops, and small, gray-coated apples from Beaupre, delicious as those that comforted the Rose of Sharon. A few carafes of choice wine from the old manorial cellar, completed the entertainment.
The meal was not a protracted one, but to Pierre Philibert the most blissful hour of his life. He sat by the side of Amelie, enjoying every moment as if it were a pearl dropped into his bosom by word, look, or gesture of the radiant girl who sat beside him.
He found Amelie, although somewhat timid at first to converse, a willing, nay, an eager listener. She was attracted by the magnetism of a noble, sympathetic nature, and by degrees ventured to cast a glance at the handsome, manly countenance where feature after feature revealed itself, like a landscape at dawn of day, and in Colonel Philibert she recognized the very looks, speech, and manner of Pierre Philibert of old.
Her questioning eyes hardly needed the interpretation of her tongue to draw him out to impart the story of his life during his long absence from New France, and it was with secret delight she found in him a powerful, cultivated intellect and nobility of sentiment such as she rightly supposed belonged only to a great man, while his visible pleasure at meeting her again filled her with a secret joy that, unnoticed by herself, suffused her whole countenance with radiance, and incited her to converse with him more freely than she had thought it possible when she sat down at table.
"It is long since we all sat together, Mademoiselle, at the table of your noble aunt," remarked Philibert. "It fulfills an often and often repeated day-dream of mine, that I should one day find you just the same."
"And do you find me just the same?" answered she, archly. "You take down the pride of ladyhood immensely, Colonel! I had imagined I was something quite other than the wild child of Tilly!"
"I hardly like to consider you as in the pride of ladyhood, Mademoiselle, for fear I should lose the wild child of Tilly, whom I should be so glad to find again."
"And whom you do find just the same in heart, mind, and regard too!" thought she to herself, but her words were,--"My school mistresses would be ashamed of their work, Colonel, if they had not improved on the very rude material my aunt sent them up from Tilly to manufacture into a fine lady! I was the crowned queen of the year when I left the Ursulines, so beware of considering me 'the child of Tilly' any longer."
Her silvery laugh caught his heart, for in that he recognized vividly the gay young girl whose image he was every instant developing out of the tall, lovely woman beside him.
La Corne St. Luc and the Lady de Tilly found a thousand delights in mutual reminiscences of the past. Le Gardeur, somewhat heavy, joined in conversation with Philibert and his sister. Amelie guessed, and Philibert knew, the secret of Le Gardeur's dulness; both strove to enliven and arouse him. His aunt guessed too, that he had passed the night as the guests of the Intendant always passed it, and knowing his temper and the regard he had for her good opinion, she brought the subject of the Intendant into conversation, in order, casually as it were, to impress Le Gardeur with her opinion of him. "Pierre Philibert too," thought she, "shall be put upon his guard against the crafty Bigot."
"Pierre," said she, "you are happy in a father who is a brave, honorable man, of whom any son in the world might be proud. The country holds by him immensely, and he deserves their regard. Watch over him now you are at home, Pierre. He has some relentless and powerful enemies, who would injure him if they could."
"That has he," remarked La Corne St. Luc; "I have spoken to the Sieur Philibert and cautioned him, but he is not impressible on the subject of his own safety. The Intendant spoke savagely of him in public the other day."
"Did he, Chevalier?" replied Philibert, his eyes flashing with another fire than that which had filled them looking at Amelie.
"He shall account to me for his words, were he Regent instead of Intendant!"
La Corne St. Luc looked half approvingly at Philibert.
"Don't quarrel with him yet, Pierre! You cannot make a quarrel of what he has said."