"Neva you mine w'ere I'm goin'."

        "You ain't goin' anyw'ere this time o' night by yo'se'f?"

        "W'at you reckon I'm 'fraid of?" she laughed. "Turn loose that ho'se," at the same time urging the animal forward. The little brute started away with a bound and Telèsphore, also with a bound, sprang into the buckboard and seated himself beside Zaïda.

        "You ain't goin' anyw'ere this time o' night by yo'se'f." It was not a question now, but an assertion, and there was no denying it. There was even no disputing it, and Zaïda recognizing the fact drove on in silence.

        There is no animal that moves so swiftly across a 'Cadian prairie as the little Creole pony. This one did not run nor trot; he seemed to reach out in galloping bounds. The buckboard creaked, bounced, jolted and swayed. Zaïda clutched at her shawl while Telèsphore drew his straw hat further down over his right eye and offered to drive. But he did not know the road and she would not let him. They had soon reached the woods.

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        If there is any animal that can creep more slowly through a wooded road than the little Creole pony, that animal has not yet been discovered in Acadie. This particular animal seemed to be appalled by the darkness of the forest and filled with dejection. His head drooped and he lifted his feet as if each hoof were weighted with a thousand pounds of lead. Any one unacquainted with the peculiarities of the breed would sometimes have fancied that he was standing still. But Zaïda and Telèsphore knew better. Zaïda uttered a deep sigh as she slackened her hold on the reins and Telèsphore, lifting his hat, let it swing from the back of his head.

        "How you don' ask me w'ere I'm goin'?" she said finally. These were the first words she had spoken since refusing his offer to drive.

        "Oh, it don' make any diff'ence w'ere you goin'."

        "Then if it don' make any diff'ence w'ere I'm goin', I jus' as well tell you." She hesitated, however. He seemed to have no curiosity and did not urge her.

        "I'm goin' to get married," she said.

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        He uttered some kind of an exclamation; it was nothing articulate - more like the tone of an animal that gets a sudden knife thrust. And now he felt how dark the forest was. An instant before it had seemed a sweet, black paradise; better than any heaven he had ever heard of.

        "W'y can't you get married at home?" This was not the first thing that occurred to him to say, but this was the first thing he said.

        "Ah, b'en oui! with perfec' mules fo' a father an' mother! it's good enough to talk."

        "W'y couldn' he come an' get you? W'at kine of a scound'el is that to let you go through the woods at night by yo'se'f?"

        "You betta wait till you know who you talkin' about. He didn' come an' get me because he knows I ain't 'fraid; an' because he's got too much pride to ride in Jules Trodon's buckboard afta he done been put out o' Jules Trodon's house."

        "W'at's his name an' w'ere you goin' to fine 'im?"

        "Yonda on the other side the woods up at ole Wat Gibson's - a kine of justice the peace or something. Anyhow he's goin' to marry us.

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An' afta we done married those tetes-de-mulets yonda on bayou de Glaize can say w'at they want."

        "W'at's his name?"

        "André Pascal."

        The name meant nothing to Telèsphore.