companies, and was accounted rich, (prospectively,) probably had more influence in inducing the elder Le Vert, who was supposed to value good lands higher than good hearts, to seek the betrothing of his son with his partner's daughter.
One other character noticed, and the story may march on.
Coron de Cheville, a young man two or three years the senior of Marie's fiancé, was a descendant of M. Rocheblave,[1] the last French governor of Kaskaskia. Having inherited a moderate fortune, he had, to some extent, enjoyed the advantages of travel, and of an education which this country did not then afford. At the age of twenty-four he had returned to his native town, and now divided his time about equally between Kaskaskia and St. Louis.
Mingling freely in the unconstrained society of the former place, he could not fail to meet Marie Lefrette; and, just at that age, when all such impressions are more vivid and definite than at any other, he was at once attracted by her beauty, grace, and simple refinement of manner. Ignorant of her engagement, he prosecuted a series of delicate but unconcealed attentions, which, in a circle more thoroughly organized, would have been at once set down as indications of a desire to make her his wife. Even here, observations had been made upon his assiduity, in so much as to excite the jealousy of Napoleon Le Vort, Marie's intended husband—a young man of morose and haughty temper, who, although incapable of loving any thing very deeply, was yet, of all men, most likely to resent what he supereiliously deemed a trespass. Nothing but Coron's self-control, and the manly contempt he felt for the other's boyish demonstrations, prevented a collision; for, we are bound to say, the conduct of Marie, guided only by her feelings, and tempered by no respect for Napoleon's half-formed character, was not calculated to avert it. She took little pains to conceal her preference for the free and open bearing of the former to the arrogant and sullen manner of the latter; probably reflecting, if she ever thought seriously of the matter, that she would have quite enough of his vapors after her marriage, and willing, while
- ↑ Whose wife, on the taking of the place in 1778, by Gen. George R. Clarke, concealed or destroyed all his public papers; and by the loss of many grants and charters, was the cause of infinite confusion in land-titles.
