[Pg 43]

Vesper repressed a slight start at the mention of the name Le Noir, then asked calmly if it was a common one among the Acadiens.

The Le Noirs and Le Blancs, the gentleman assured him, were as plentiful as blackberries, while as to Melançons, there were eighty families of them on the Bay. "This has given rise to the curious house-that-Jack-built system of naming," he said. "There is Jean à Jacques Melançon, which is Jean, the son of Jacques,—Jean à Basile, Jean à David, and sometimes Jean à Martin à Conrade à Benoit Melançon, but"—and he checked himself quickly—"I am, perhaps, wearying you with all this?" He was as a man anxious, yet hesitating, to impart information, and Vesper hastened to assure him that he was deeply interested in the Acadiens.

The cloud swept from the face of the vivacious gentleman. "You gratify me. The old prejudice against my countrymen still lingers in this province[Pg 44] in the shape of indifference. I rarely discuss them unless I know my listener."

[Pg 44]

"Have I the pleasure of addressing an Acadien?" asked Vesper.

"I have the honor to be one," said the stout gentleman, and his face flushed like that of a girl.

Vesper gave him a quick glance. This was the first Acadien that he had ever seen, and he was about as far removed from the typical Acadien that he had pictured to himself as a man could be. This man was a gentleman. He had expected to find the Acadiens, after all the trials they had gone through in their dispossession of property and wanderings by sea and land, degenerated into a despoiled and poverty-stricken remnant of peasantry. Curiously gratified by the discovery that here was one who had not gone under in the stress of war and persecution, he remarked that his companion was probably well-informed on the subject of the expulsion of his countrymen from this province.

"The expulsion,—ah!" said the gentleman, in a repressed voice. Then, unable to proceed, he made a helpless gesture and turned his face towards the window.

The younger man thought that there were tears in his eyes, and forbore to speak.

"One mentions it so calmly nowadays," said the Acadien, presently, looking at him. "There is no[Pg 45] passion, no resentment, yet it is a living flame in the breast of every true Acadien, and this is the reason,—it is a tragedy that is 

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