young ladies. They like best to be fought over. It is not proper to
_tell_ her we are willing to have her. The way to do is to drive off the
other suitors."

"But there are so many. Tante Isidore says all the young men in
Kaskaskia and the officers left at Fort Chartres are her suitors.
Monsieur Reece Zhone is the worst one, though. I might ask him to go out
to papa's office with me to-night, but we shall be sent to bed directly
after supper. Besides, here sits his sister who was carried out
fainting."

"While he is in our house we are obliged to be polite to him," said
Odile. "But if I were a boy, I would, some time, get on my pony and ride
into Kaskaskia"--The conspiring went on in whispers. The children's
heads bobbed nearer each other, so Peggy overheard no more.

It was the very next evening, the evening of St. John's Day, that young
Pierre rode into Kaskaskia beside his father to see the yearly bonfire
lighted. Though many of the old French customs had perished in a mixing
of nationalities, St. John's Day was yet observed; the Latin race
drawing the Saxon out to participate in the festival, as so often
happens wherever they dwell.

The bonfire stood in the middle of the street fronting the church. It
was an octagonal pyramid, seven or eight feet high, built of dry oak and
pecan limbs and logs, with straw at all the corners.

The earth yet held a red horizon rim around its dusky surface. Some
half-distinct swallows were swarming into the church belfry, as silent
as bats; but people swarming on the ground below made a cheerful noise,