mythic personage. What is his history?'

'No one knows. He came here fifty years ago, and after officiating on
the island a few years, he retired to a little Indian farm in the
Chenaux, where he has lived ever since. Occasionally he holds a
service for the half-breeds at Point St. Ignace, but the parish of
Mackinac proper has its regular priest, and Father Piret apparently
does not hold even the appointment of missionary. Why he remains
here--a man educated, refined, and even aristocratic--is a mystery. He
seems to be well provided with money; his little house in the Chenaux
contains foreign books and pictures, and he is very charitable to the
poor Indians. But he keeps himself aloof, and seems to desire no
intercourse with the world beyond his letters and papers, which come
regularly, some of them from France. He seldom leaves the Straits; he
never speaks of himself; always he appears as you saw him, carefully
dressed and stately. Each summer when he is seen on the street, there
is more or less curiosity about him among the summer visitors, for he
is quite unlike the rest of us Mackinac people. But no one can
discover anything more than I have told you, and those who have
persisted so far as to sail over to the Chenaux either lose their way
among the channels, or if they find the house, they never find him;
the door is locked, and no one answers.'

'Singular,' I said. 'He has nothing of the hermit about him. He has
what I should call a courtly manner.'

'That is it,' replied my hostess, taking up the word; 'some say he
came from the French court,--a nobleman exiled for political offences;
others think he is a priest under the ban; and there is still a third
story, to the effect that he is a French count, who, owing to a