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Then Father Petit came, preceding Saint-Castin, and set up his altar and built his chapel. The Abenaqui girl was converted as soon as she looked in at the door and saw the gracious image of Mary lifted up to be her pattern of womanhood. Those silent and terrible days, when she lost interest in the bustle of living, and felt an awful homesickness for some unknown good, passed entirely away.
A French marriage contract was no better than an Abenaqui marriage contract in Madockawando's eyes; but if Saint-Castin could bind up his daughter for good, he would be glad of it.
The climbing and reaching and lifting had heated their faces, and the cool salt air flowed in, refreshing them. Their hands were pricked by the spiny foliage, but they labored without complaint, in unbroken meditation. A monotonous low singing of the Etchemin's kept company with the breathing of the sea. This decking of the chapel acted like music on the Abenaqui girl.
"I beg that you will kiss me," he pleaded, trembling. The Abenaqui girl laughed aloud. "Does the sagamore think he is an object of veneration, that I should kiss him?" "But will you not at least touch your lips to my forehead?" "No. I touch my lips to holy things." "You do not understand the feeling I have." "No, I do not understand it. If you talked every day, it would do no good.
"I will kiss you now, sagamore," whispered the Abenaqui girl, trembling and weeping in the chaos of her broken reserve. "I cannot any longer hold out against being your wife." She gave him her first kiss in the sacred darkness of the chapel, and under the picture of the pierced heart.
"Mademoiselle," said Baron La Hontan in very French Abenaqui, rising to one knee, and sweeping the twigs with the brim of his hat as he pulled it off, "the Baron de Saint-Castin of Pentegoet, the friend of your chief Madockawando, is at your lodge door, tired and chilled from a long hunt. Can you not permit him to warm at your fire?" The Abenaqui girl bowed her covered head.
The dealer with invisible spirits commanded respect in Indian minds before the priest came. Madockawando's daughter was of a lighter color than most of her tribe, and finer in her proportions, though they were a well-made people. She was the highest expression of unadulterated Abenaqui blood.
"I only know that if my Adele chose to worship the thunder like an Abenaqui squaw, or turned her innocent prayers to the Mitche Manitou, I should like to set eyes upon the man who would dare to lay a hand upon her. Ha, here comes our caleche! Whip up, driver, and five livres to you if you pass the gate of the Invalides within the hour."
Nevertheless, on the first of September, Druilletes set forth from Quebec with a Christian chief of Sillery, crossed forests, mountains, and torrents, and reached Norridgewock, the highest Abenaqui settlement on the Kennebec.
Miladi had missed the sweets of her native land, though there they had not been over-plentiful, since royalty must needs be served first. They bought maple sugar and a kind of crude syrup of the Abenaqui women, who were quite experts in making it.
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