of a Cavalier father turned a Puritan on a sudden, and he wished no such
experience for his daughter. For all her abundancy of life and feeling,
he knew how plastic and impressionable she was, and he dreaded to see
that exaltation of her fresh spirit touched with gloom. She was his only
child, she had been little out of his sight, her education had gone on
under his own care, and, in so far as was possible in a new land, he had
surrounded her with gracious influences. He looked forward to any
definite separation (as marriage) with apprehension. Perhaps one of the
reasons why he chose Colonel Nicholls's house for her home, was a fear
lest George Gering should so impress her that she might somehow change
ere his return. And in those times brides of sixteen were common as now
they are rare.

She sat on the governor's left. All the brightness, the soft piquancy,
which Iberville knew, had returned; and he wondered--fortunate to know
that wonder so young--at her varying moods. She talked little, and most
with the governor; but her presence seemed pervasive, the aura in her
veins flowed from her eye and made an atmosphere that lighted even the
scarred and rather sulky faces of two officers of His Majesty near. They
had served with Nicholls in Spain, but not having eaten King Louis's
bread, eyed all Frenchmen askance, and were not needlessly courteous to
Iberville, whose achievements they could scarce appreciate, having done
no Indian fighting.

Iberville sat at the governor's end, Gering at the other. It was noticed
by Iberville that Gering's eyes were much on Jessica, and in the spirit
of rivalry, the legitimate growth of race and habit, he began to speak to
her with the air of easy but deliberate playfulness which marked their
first meeting.