"I don't wonder my father was interested in her," Laurent St. Armand thought. He studied the beautiful eyes with their frank innocence, the dainty mouth and chin, the proud, uplifted expression that indicated nobleness and no self-consciousness.

"And now I must bid thee good-by with my own and my father's blessing. We shall return to America and find you again. You will hardly go away from Detroit?"

She was quite ready at that moment to give up M. Bellestre's plans for her future.

He took her hand. Then he pressed his lips upon it with the grave courtesy of a gentleman.

"Adieu," he said softly. "Pani, watch well over her."

The woman bowed her head with a deeper feeling than mere assent.

Jeanne sat down on the doorstep, leaning her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand. Grave thoughts were stirring within her, the awakening of a new life on the side she had seen, but never known. The beautiful young women quite different from the gay, chattering demoiselles, their proudly held heads, their dignity, their soft voices, their air of elegance and refinement, all this Jeanne Angelot felt but could not have put into words, not even into thought. And this young man was over on that side. Oh, all Detroit must lie between, from the river out to the farms! Could she ever cross the great gulf? What was it made the difference—education? Then she would study more assiduously than ever. Was this why Monsieur St. Armand was so earnest about her trying?

She glanced down at her little brown hand. Oh, how soft and warm his lips had been, what a gentle touch! She pressed her own lips to it, and a delicious sensation sped through her small body.

"What art thou dreaming about, Jeanne? Come to thy dinner."

She glanced up with a smile. In a vague way she had known before there were many things Pani could not understand; now she felt the keen, far-reaching difference between them, between her and the De Bers, and Louis Marsac, and all the people she had ever known. But her mother, who could tell most about her, was dead.

It was not possible for a glad young thing to keep in a strained mood that would have no answering comprehension, and Jeanne's love of nature was so overwhelming. Then the autumn at the West was so glowing, so full of richness that it stirred her immeasurably. She could hardly endure the confinement on some days.

"What makes you so restless?" asked the master one noon when he was dismissing some scholars kept in until their slow wits had mastered their tasks. She, too, had been inattentive and willful.

"I am part of the woods to-day, a chipmunk running about, a cricket which dares not chirp," and she glanced up into the stern eyes with a merry light, "a grasshopper who takes long strides, a bee who goes buzzing, a glad, gay bird who says to his mate, 'Come, let us go to the unknown land and spend a winter in idleness, with no nest to build, no hungry, crying babies to feed, nothing but just to swing in the trees and laugh with the sunshine.'"

"Thou art a queer child. Come, say thy lesson well and we will spend the whole afternoon in the woods. Thou shalt consort with thy brethren the birds, for thou art brimming over."

The others were dismissed with some added punishment. The master took out his luncheon. He was not overpaid, he had no family and lived by himself, sleeping in the loft over the school.

"Oh, come home with me!" the child cried. "Pani's cakes of maize are so good, and no one cooks fish with such a taste and smell. It would make one rise in the middle of the night."

"Will the tall Indian woman give me a welcome?"

"Oh, Pani likes whomever I like;" with gay assurance.

"And dost thou like me, child?"

"Yes, yes." She caught his hand in both of hers. "Sometimes you are cross and make ugly frowns, and often I pity the poor children you beat, but I know, too, they deserve it. And you speak so sharp! I used to jump when I heard it, but now I only give a little start, and sometimes just smile within, lest the children should see it and be worse. It is a queer little laugh that runs down inside of one. Come, Pani will be waiting."

She took his hand as they picked their way through the narrow streets, having to turn out now and then for a loaded wheelbarrow, or two men carrying a big plank on their shoulders, or a heavy burthen, one at each end. For there were some streets not even a wagon and two horses could get through.

To the master's surprise Pani did not even seem put out as Jeanne explained the waiting. Had fish toasted before the coals ever tasted so good? The sagamite he had learned to tolerate, but the maize cakes were so excellent it seemed as if he could never get enough of them.

The golden October sun lay warm everywhere and was tinting the hills and forests with richness that glowed and glinted as if full of life. Afar, one could see the shine of the river, the distant lake, the undulations where the tall trees did not cut it off. Crows were chattering and scolding. A great flock of wild geese passed over with their hoarse, mysterious cry, and shaped like two immense wings each side of their leader.

"Now you shall tell me about the other countries where you have been," and Jeanne dropped on the soft turf, motioning him to be seated.

In all his journeying through the eastern part of the now United Colonies, he thought he had never seen a fairer sight than this. It warmed and cheered his old heart. And sure he had never had a more enraptured listener.

But in a brief while the glory of wood and field was gone. The shriveled leaves were blown from the trees by the fierce gusts. The beeches stood like bare, trembling ghosts, the pines and firs with their rough dark tops were like great Indian wigwams and were enough to terrify the beholder. Sharp, shrill cries at night of fox and wolf, the rustle of the deer and the slow, clumsy tread of the bear, the parties of Indians drawing nearer civilization, braves who had roamed all summer in idleness returning to patient squaws, told of the approach of winter.

New pickets were set about barns and houses, and coverings of skin made added warmth. The small flocks were carefully sheltered from marauding Indians. Doors and windows were hung with curtains of deer skins, floors were covered with buffalo or bear hide, and winter garments were brought out. Even inside the palisade one could see a great change in apparel and adornment. The booths were no longer invitingly open, but here and there were inns and places of evening resort where the air was not only enough to stifle one, but so blue with smoke you could hardly see your neighbor's face. No merry parties sang songs upon the river nor went up to the lake in picnic fashion.

Still there was no lack of hearty good cheer. On the farms one and another gave a dance to celebrate some special occasion. There was husking corn and shelling it, there were meats and fish to be salted, some of it dried, for now the inhabitants within and without knew that winter was long and cold.

They had sincerely mourned General Wayne. A new commandant had been sent, but the general government was poor and deeply in debt and there were many vexed questions to settle. So old Detroit changed very little under the new regime. There was some delightful social life around the older or, rather, more aristocratic part of the town, where several titled English people still remained. Fortnightly balls were given, dinners, small social dances, for in that time dancing was the amusement of the young as card playing was of the older ones.

Then came days of whirling, blinding snow when one could hardly stir out, succeeded by sunshine of such brilliance that Detroit seemed a dazzle of gems. Parties had merry games of snowballing, there were sledging, swift traveling on skates and snowshoes, and if the days were short the long evenings were full of good cheer, though many a gruesome story was told of Pontiac's time, and the many evil times before that, and of the heroic explorers and the brave fathers who had gone to plant the cross and the lilies of France in the wilderness.

Jeanne wondered that she should care so little for the defection of the De Bers. Pierre passed her with a sullen nod when he met her face to face and sometimes did not notice her at all. Marie was very important when she recovered from the surprise that a man should want to marry her, and that she should be the first of Delisse Graumont's maids to marry, she who was the youngest of them all.

"I had a beau in my cup at the tea drinking, and he was holding out his hand, which was a sign that he would come soon. And, Rose, I mean to have a tea drinking. I hope you will get the beau."

"I am in no hurry," and Rose tossed her pretty head.

Marie and her mother went down to the Beeson house to see what plenishings were needed. It was below the inclosure, quite a farm, in the new part running down to the river, where there was a dock and a rough sort of basin, quite a boat yard, for Antoine Beeson had not yet aspired to anything very grand in ship building. They pulled out the great fur rugs and hangings and put the one up and the other down, and Antoine coming in was so delighted with the homelikeness that he caught his betrothed about the waist and whirled her round and round.

"Really, I think some day I shall learn to dance," and he gave his broad, hearty laugh that Marie had grown quite accustomed to.

Madame De Ber looked amazed and severe.



CHAPTER IX.

CHRISTMAS AND A CONFESSION.

Ah, how the bells rang out on Christmas morning! A soft, muffled sound coming through the roofs of white snow that looked like peaked army tents, the old Latin melody that had rejoiced many a heart and carried the good news round the world.

It was still dark when Jeanne heard Pani stirring, and she sprang out of bed.

"I am going to church with you, Pani," she declared in a tone that left no demur.

"Ah, child, if thou hadst listened to the good father and been confirmed, then thou mightst have partaken of the mass."

Jeanne almost wished she had. But the schoolmaster had strengthened her opposition, or rather her dread, a little, quite unknowingly, and yet he had given her more reverence and a longing for real faith.

"But I shall be thinking of the shepherds and the glad tidings. I watched the stars last night, they were so beautiful. 'And they came and stood over the place,' the schoolmaster read it to me. That was way over the other side of the world, Pani."

The Indian woman shook her head. She was afraid of this strange knowledge, and she had a vague idea that it must have happened here in Detroit, since the Christ was born anew every year.

The stars were not all gone out of the sky. The crisp snow crunched under their feet, although the moccasins were soft and warm; and everybody was muffled in furs, even to hoods and pointed caps. Some people were carrying lanterns, but they could find their way, straight along St. Anne's street. The bell kept on until they stood in the church porch.

"Thou wilt sit here, child."

Jeanne made no protest. She rather liked being hidden here in the darkness.

There were the De Bers, then Marie and her lover, then Rose and Pierre. How much did dull Pierre believe and understand? The master's faith seemed simpler to her.

A little later was the regular Christmas service with the altar decked in white and gold and the two fathers in their beautiful robes of rejoicing, the candlesticks that had been sent from France a century before, burnished to their brightest and the candles lighted. Behind the screen the sisters and the children sang hymns, and some in the congregation joined, though the men were much more at home in the music of the violins and in the jollity.

Jeanne felt strangely serious, and half wished she was among the children. It was the fear of having to become a nun that deterred her. She could not understand how Berthe Campeau could leave her ailing mother and go to Montreal for religion's sake. Madame Campeau was not able to stand the journey even if she had wanted to go, but she and her sister had had some differences, and, since Berthe would go, her son's wife had kindly offered to care for her.

"And what there is left thou shalt have, Catherine," she said to her daughter-in-law. "None of my money shall go to Montreal. It would be only such a little while for Berthe to wait. I cannot last long."

So she had said for three years and Berthe had grown tired of waiting. Her imagination fed on the life of devotion and exaltation that her aunt wrote about.

At noon Marie De Ber was married. She shivered a little in her white gown, for the church was cold. Her veil fell all over her and no one could see whether her face was joyful or not. Truth to tell, she was sadly frightened, but everybody was merry, and her husband wrapped her in a fur cloak and packed her in his sledge. A procession followed, most of them on foot, for there was to be a great dinner at Tony Beeson's.

Then, although the morning had been so lovely, the sky clouded over with leaden gray and the wind came in great sullen gusts from Lake Huron. You could hear it miles away, a fierce roar such as the droves of bisons made, as if they were breaking in at your very door. Pani hung the bearskin against the door and let down the fur curtains over the windows. There was a bright log fire and Jeanne curled up on one side in a wolfskin, resting her head on a cushion of cedar twigs that gave out a pleasant fragrance. Pani sat quietly on the other side. There was no light but the blaze. Neither was the Indian woman used to the small industries some of the French took up when they had passed girlhood. In a slow, phlegmatic fashion she used to go over her past life, raising up from their graves, as it were, Madame de Longueil, Madame Bellestre, and then Monsieur, though he never came from the shadowy grave, but a garden that bore strange fruit, and where it was summer all the year round. She had the gift of obedient faith, so she was a good Catholic, as far as her own soul was concerned, but her duty toward the child often troubled her.

Jeanne watched the blaze in a strange mood, her heart hot and angry at one moment, proud and indifferent at the next. She said a dozen times a day to herself that she didn't care a dead leaf for Marie, who had grown so consequential and haughty, and Rose, who was full of her own pleasure. It seemed as if other children had dropped out as well, but then in this cold weather she could not run out to the farms or lead a group of eager young people to see her do amazing feats. For she could walk out on the limb of a tree and laugh while it swung up and down with her weight, and then catch the limb of the next tree and fling herself over, amid their shouts. No boy dared climb higher. She had caught little owls who blinked at her with yellow eyes, but she always put them back in the trees again.

"You wouldn't like to be carried away by fierce Indians," she said when the children begged they might keep them. "They like their homes and their mothers."

"As if an owl could tell who its mother was!" laughed a boy disdainfully.

She had hardly known the feeling of loneliness. What did she do last winter, she wondered? O yes, she played with the De Ber children, and there were the Pallents, whom she seldom went to visit now, they seemed so very ignorant. Ah—if it would come summer again!

"For the trees and the flowers and the birds are better than most people," she ruminated. It must be because everybody had gone out of her life that it appeared wide and strange. After all she did not care for the De Bers and yet it seemed as if she had been stabbed to the heart. Pierre and Marie had pretended to care so much for her. Then, in spite of her sadness, she laughed.

"What is it amuses thee so, little one?" asked the Indian woman.

"I am not old enough to have a lover, Pani, am I?" and she looked out of her furry wrap.

"No, child, no. What folly! Marie's wedding has set thee astray."

"And Pierre is a slow, stupid fellow."

"Pierre would be no match for thee, and I doubt if the De Bers would countenance such a thing if he were older. That is nonsense."

"Pierre asked me to be his wife. He said twice that he wanted to marry me—at the raising of the flag, when we were on the water, and one Sunday in the autumn. I am not as old as Rose De Ber, even, so Marie need not feel set upon a pinnacle because Tony Beeson marries her when she is barely fifteen."

"Jeanne!" Pani's tone was horror stricken. "And it will make no end of trouble. Madame De Ber is none too pleasant now."

"It will make no trouble. I said 'no' and 'no' and 'no,' until it was like this mighty wind rushing through the forest, and he was very angry. So I should not go to the De Bers any more. And, Pani, if I had a father who would make me marry him when I was older, I should go and throw myself into the Strait."

"His father sends him up in the fur country in the spring."

"What makes people run crazy when weddings are talked of? But if I wanted to hold my head high and boast—"

"Oh, child, you could not be so silly!"

"No, Pani. And I shall be glad to have him go away. I do not want any lovers."

The woman was utterly amazed, and then consoled herself with the thought that it was merely child's play. They both lapsed into silence again. But Jeanne's thoughts ran on. There was Louis Marsac. What if he returned next summer and tormented her? A perplexing mood, half pride, half disgust, filled her, and a serious elation at her own power which thrills young feminine things when they first discover it; as well as the shrinking into a new self-appropriation that thrusts out all such matters. But she did not laugh over Louis Marsac. She felt afraid of him, and she scrubbed her mouth where he had once kissed it.

There was another kiss on her hand. She held it up in the firelight. Ah, if she had a father like M. St. Armand, and a brother like the young man!

She was seized with an awful pang as if a swift, dark current was bearing her away from every one but Pani. Why had her father and mother been wrenched out of her life? She had seen a plant or a young shrub swept out of its rightful place and tossed to and fro until some stronger wave threw it upon the sandy edge, to droop and die. Was she like that? Where had she been torn from? She had been thrown into Pani's lap. She had never minded the little jeers before when the children had called her a wild Indian. Was she nobody's child?

She had an impulse to jump about and storm around the room, to drag some secret out of Pani, to grasp the world in her small hands and compel it to disclose its knowledge. She looked steadily into the red fire and her heart seemed bursting with the breath that could not find an outlet.

The bells began to ring again. "Come," "come," they said. Had she better not go to the sisters and live with them? The Church would be father and mother.

She bent down her head and cried very softly, for it seemed as if all joy had gone out of her life. Pani fell asleep and snored.

But the next morning the world was lovelier than ever with the new fallen snow. Men were shoveling it away from doorways and stamping it down in the streets with their great boots, the soles being wooden and the legs of fur. And they snowballed each other. The children joined and rolled in the snow. Now and then a daring young fellow caught a demoiselle and rubbed roses into her cheeks.

All the rest of the week was given over to holiday life. There were great doings at the Citadel and in some of the grand houses. There were dances and dinners, and weddings so brilliant that Marie De Ber's was only a little rushlight in comparison.

The master went down to Marietta for a visit. Jeanne seemed like a pendulum swinging this way and that. She was lonely and miserable. One day the Church seemed a refuge, the next she shrank with a sort of terror and longed for spring, as a drowning man longs for everything that promises succor.

One morning Monsieur Loisel, the notary, came in with a grave and solemn mien.

"I have news for thee, Pani and Mam'selle, a great word of sorrow, and it grieves me to be the bearer of it. Yet the good Lord has a right to his own, for I cannot doubt but that Madame Bellestre's intercession has been of some avail. And Monsieur Bellestre was an upright, honorable, kindly man."

"Monsieur Bellestre is dead," said Pani with the shock of a sudden revelation.

Jeanne stood motionless. Then he could never come back! And, oh, what if Monsieur St. Armand never came back!

"Yes. Heaven rest his soul, say I, and so does the good Father Rameau. For his gift to the Church seems an act of faith."

"And Jeanne?" inquired the woman tremblingly.

"It is about the child I have come to talk. Monsieur Bellestre has made some provision for her, queerly worded, too."

"Oh, he does not take her away from me!" cried the foster mother in anguish.

"No. He had some strange notions not in accord with the Church, we all know, that liberty to follow one's opinion is a good thing. It is not always so in worldly affairs even, but of late years it has come largely in vogue in religious matters. And here is the part of his will that pertains to her. You would not understand the preamble, so I will tell it in plain words. To you, Pani, is given the house and a sum of money each year. To the child is left a yearly portion until she is sixteen, then, if she becomes a Catholic and chooses the lot of a sister, it ceases. Otherwise it is continued until she is married, when she is given a sum for a dowry. And at your death your income reverts to the Bellestre estate."

"Monsieur Bellestre did not want me to become a nun, then?"

Jeanne asked the question gravely as a woman.

"It seems not, Mam'selle. He thinks some one may come to claim you, but that is hardly probable after all these years;" and there was a dryness in the notary's tone. "You are to be educated, but I think the sisters know better what is needful for a girl. There are no restrictions, however. I am to see that the will is carried out, and the new court is to appoint what is called a guardian. The money is to be sent to me every six months. It surely is a great shame Mam'selle has no male relatives."

"Shall we have to change, Monsieur?" asked Pani with a dread in her voice.

"Oh, no; unless Mam'selle should—" he looked questioningly at the girl.

"I shall never leave Pani." She came and stretching up clasped her arms about the woman's neck as she had in her babyhood. "And I like to go to school to the master."

"M. Bellestre counts this way, that you were three years old when you came to Detroit. That was nine years ago. And that you are twelve now. So there are four years—"

"It looks a long while, but the past does not seem so. Why, last winter is like the turn of your hand," and she turned hers over with a smile.

"Many things may happen in four years." No doubt she would have a lover and marry. "Let me go over it again."

They both listened, Jeanne wide-eyed, Pani nodding her head slowly.

"I must tell you that M. Bellestre left fifty pounds to Father Rameau for any purpose he considered best. And now the court will take it in hand, but these new American courts are all in confusion and very slow. Still, as there is to be no change, and the money will come through me as before, why, there will be no trouble."

Pani nodded again but made no comment. She could hardly settle her mind to the fact of Monsieur Bellestre's death.

"Allow me to congratulate you, Mam'selle, on having so sincere a friend." M. Loisel held out his hand.

"If he had but come back! I do not care for the money."

"Still, money is a very good thing. Well, we will have several more talks about this. Adieu, Mam'selle. My business is ended at present."

He bowed politely as he went out; but he thought, "It is a crazy thing leaving her to the care of that old Indian woman. Surely he could not have distrusted Father Rameau? And though the good father is quite sure—well, it does not do for anyone to be too sure in this world."

Father Rameau came that very afternoon and had a long talk with Pani. He did not quite understand why M. Bellestre should be so opposed to the Church taking charge of the child, since she was not in the hands of any relative. But he had promised Pani she should not be separated from her, indeed, no one had a better right to her, he felt.

M. Bellestre's family were strong Huguenots, and had been made to suffer severely for their faith in Old France, and not a little in the new country. He had not cordially loved the English, but he felt that the larger liberty had been better for the settlement, and that education was the foe to superstition and bigotry, as well as ignorance. While he admitted to himself, and frankly to the town, the many excellencies of the priest, it was the system, that held the people in bondage and denied enlightenment, that he protested against. It was with great pain that he had discovered his wife's gradual absorption, but knowing death was at hand he could not deny her last request. But the child should choose for herself, and, if under Pani's influence she should become a Catholic, he would not demur. From time to time he had accounts from M. Loisel, and he had been pleased with the desire of the child for education. She should have that satisfaction.

And now spring was coming again. The sense of freedom and rejoicing broke out anew in Jeanne, but she found herself restrained by some curious power that was finer than mere propriety. She was growing older and knowledge enlarged her thoughts and feelings, stirred a strange something within her that was ambition, though she knew it not; she had not grown accustomed to the names of qualities.

The master was taking great pride in her, and gave her the few advantages within his reach. Detroit was being slowly remodeled, but it was discouraging work, since the French settlers were satisfied with their own ways, and looked with suspicion on improvements even in many simple devices for farming.

With the fur season the town was in wild confusion and holiday jollity prevailed. There were Indians with packs; and the old race of the coureurs des bois, who were still picturesque with their red sashes and jaunty habiliments. They were wild men of the woods, who had thrown off the restraints of civilized life and who hunted as much for the pleasure as the profit. They could live in a wigwam, they could join Indian dances, they were brave, hardy, but in some instances savage as the Indians themselves and quite as lawless. A century ago they had been the pioneers of the fur hunters, with many a courageous explorer among them. The newer organizations of the fur companies had curtailed their power and their numbers had dwindled, but they kept up their wild habits, and this was the carouse of the whole year.

It was a busy season. There was great chaffering, disputing, and not a few fights, though guards were detailed along the river front to keep the peace as far as was possible. Boats were being loaded for Montreal, cargoes to be shipped down the Hudson and from thence abroad, with mink and otter and beaver, beautiful fox furs, white wolf and occasionally a white bear skin that dealers would quarrel about.

Then the stores of provisions to be sent back to the trappers and hunters, the clothes and blankets and trinkets for the Indians, kept shopkeepers busy day and night, and poured money into their coffers. New men were going out,—to an adventurous young fellow this seemed the great opportunity of his life.

Jeanne Angelot's fortune had been noised abroad somewhat, though she paid little attention to it even in her thoughts. But she was a girl with a dowry now, and she was not only growing tall but strangely pretty as well. Her skin was fairer, her hair, which still fell in loose curls, was kept in better order. Coif she would not wear, but sometimes she tied a bright kerchief under her chin and looked bewitching.

French mothers of sons were never averse to a dowry, although men were so in want of wives that few went begging for husbands. Women paused to chat with Pani and make kindly inquiries about her charge. Even Madame De Ber softened. She was opposed to Pierre's going north with the hunters, but he was so eager and his father considered it a good thing. And now he was a strapping big fellow, taller than his father, slowly shaping up into manhood.

"Thou hast not been to visit Marie?" she said one day on meeting Jeanne face to face. "She has spoken of it. Last year you were such a child, but now you have quite grown and will be companionable. All the girls have visited her. Her husband is most excellent."

"I have been busy with lessons," said Jeanne with some embarrassment. Then, with a little pride—"Marie dropped me, and if I were not to be welcome—"

"Chut! chut! Marie had to put on a little dignity. A child like you should bear no malice."

"But—she sent me no invitation."

"Then I must chide her. And it will be pleasant down there in the summer. Do you know that Pierre goes back with the hunters?"

"I have heard—yes."

"It is not my wish, but if he can make money in his youth so much the better. And the others are growing up to fill his place. Good day to thee, Jeanne."

That noon Madame De Ber said to her husband, "Jeanne Angelot improves greatly. Perhaps the school will do her no harm. She is rather sharp with her replies, but she always had a saucy tongue. A girl needs a mother to correct her, and Pani spoils her."

"She will have quite a dowry, I have heard," remarked her husband.

Pierre flushed a little at this pleasant mention of her name. If Jeanne only walked down in the town like some of the girls! If Rose might ask her to go!

But Rose did not dare, and then there was Martin ready to waylay her. Three were awkward when you liked best to have a young man to yourself.

How many times Pierre had watched her unseen, her lithe figure that seemed always atilt even when wrapped in furs, and her starry eyes gleaming out of her fur hood. Not even Rose could compare with her in that curious daintiness, though Pierre would have been at loss to describe it, since his vocabulary was limited, but he felt it in every slow beating pulse. He had resolved to speak, but she never gave him the opportunity. She flashed by him as if she had never known him.

But he must say good-by to her. There was Madelon Dace, who had quarreled with her lover and gone to a dance with some one else and held her head high, never looking to the right or the left, and then as suddenly melted into sweetness and they would be married. Yet Madelon had said to his sister Marie, "I will never speak to him, never!" What had he done to offend Jeanne so deeply? Girls were not usually angered at a man falling in love with them.

So Pierre's pack was made up. In the autumn they could send again. He took tea the last time with Marie. The boats were all ready to start up the Huron.

He went boldly to the little cottage and said courageously to Pani, though his heart seemed to quake almost down to his feet, "I am going away at noon. I have come to say good-by to Jeanne—and to you," put in as an afterthought.

"What a great fellow you are, Pierre! I wish you good luck. Jeanne—"

Jeanne had almost forgotten her childish anger, and the love making was silly, even in remembrance.

"Surely I wish thee good luck, Pierre," she said formally, with a smile not too warm about her rosy lips. "And a fortunate hunting and trading."

"A safe return, Mam'selle, put that in," he pleaded.

"A safe return."

Then they shook hands and he went his way, thinking with great comfort that she had not flouted him.

It was quite a great thing to see the boats go out. Sweethearts and wives congregated on the wharves. Some few brave women went with their husbands. Other ships were setting out for Montreal well loaded, and one or two were carrying a gay lot of passengers.

After a few weeks, quiet returned, the streets were no longer crowded and the noisy reveling was over for a while. The farmers were busy out of doors, cattle were lowing, chanticleer rang out his call to work in the early morn, and busy hens were caroling in cheerful if unmusical voices. Trees budded into a beautiful haze and then sprang into leaf, into bloom. The rough social hilarity was over for a while.

A few of the emigrant farmers laughed at the clumsy, wasteful French methods and tried their own, which were laughed at in turn, but there was little disputing.

Easter had fallen early and it had been cold, but Whitsuntide made amends, and was, if anything, a greater festival. For a procession formed at St. Anne's, young girls in gala attire, smart, middle-aged women with new caps and kerchiefs, husbands and sons, and not a few children, and marched out of the Pontiac gate, as it was called in remembrance of the long siege. Forty years before Jacques Campeau had built the first little outside chapel on his farm, which had a great stretch of ground. The air was full of the fragrance of fruit blossoms and hardly needed incense. Ah, how beautiful it was in a sort of pastoral simplicity! And after saying mass, Father Frechette blessed and prayed for fertile fields and good crops and generous hearts that tithes might not be withheld, and the faithful rewarded. Then they went to the Fulcher farm, where, in a chapel not much more than a shrine, the service was again said with the people kneeling around in the grass. The farmers and good housewives placed more faith in this than in the methods of the newcomers with their American wisdom. But it was a pleasing service. The procession changed about a little,—the young men walking with the demoiselles and whispering in their listening ears.

Jeanne was with them. Madame De Ber was quite gracious, and Marie Beeson singled her out. It had been a cold winter and a backward spring and Marie had not gone anywhere. Tony was so exigent, and she laughed and bridled. It was a very happy thing to be married and have some one care for you. And soon she would give a tea drinking and she would send for Jeanne, who must be sure to come.

But Jeanne had a strange, dreary feeling. She seemed between everything, no longer a child and not a woman, not a part of the Church, not a part of anything. She felt afraid of the future. Oh, what was her share of the bright, beautiful world?



CHAPTER X.

BLOOMS OF THE MAY.

The spring came in with a quickening glory. A fortnight ago the snow was everywhere, the skaters were still out on the streams, the young fellows having rough snowballing matches, then suddenly one morning the white blanket turned a faint, sickly, soft gray, and withered. The pallid skies grew blue, the brown earth showed in patches, there were cheerful sounds from the long-housed animals, rivulets were all afloat running in haste to swell the streams, and from thence to the river and the lakes.

The tiny rings of fir and juniper brightened, the pine branches swelled with great furry buds, bursting open into pale green tassels that moved with every breath of wind. The hemlocks shot out feathery fronds, the spruce spikes of bluish green, the maples shook around red blossoms and then uncurled tiny leaves. The hickories budded in a strange, pale yellow, but the oaks stood sturdy with some of the winter's brown leaves clinging to them.

The long farms outside the stockade awoke to new vigor as well. Everybody set to work, for the summer heats would soon be upon them, and the season was short. There was a stir in the town proper, as well.

And now, at mid-May, when some of the crops were in, there was a day of merrymaking, beginning with a procession and a blessing of the fields, and then the fiddles were taken down, for the hard work lasting well into the evening made both men and women tired enough to go to bed early, when their morning began in the twilight.

The orchards were abloom and sweetened all the air. The evergreens sent out a resinous, pungent fragrance, the grass was odorous with the night dews. The maypole was raised anew, for generally the winter winds blowing fiercely over from the great western lake demolished it, though they always let it stand as long as it would, and in the autumn again danced about it. It had been the old French symbol of welcome and good wishes to their Seigneurs, as well as to the spring. And now it was a legend of past things and a merrymaking.

The pole had bunches of flowers tied here and there, and long streamers that it was fun to jerk from some one's hand and let the wind blow them away. Girls and youths did this to rivals, with mischievous laughter.

The habitans were in their holiday garb, which had hardly changed for two hundred years except when it was put by for winter furs, clean blue tunics, scarlet caps and sashes, deerskin breeches trimmed with yellow or brown fringe, sometimes both, leggings and moccasins with bead embroidery and brightly dyed threads.

There were shopkeepers, too, there were boatmen and Indians, and some of the quality with their wives in satin and lace and gay brocades. Soldiers as well in their military gear, and officers in buff and blue with cocked hats and pompons.

The French girls had put on their holiday attire and some had festooned a light skirt over one of cloth and placed in it a bright bow. Gowns that were family heirlooms, never seeing day except on some festive occasion, strings of beads, belts studded with wampum shells, high-heeled shoes with a great buckle or bow, but not as easy to dance in as moccasins.

Two years had brought more changes to the individual, or rather the younger part of the community, than to the town. A few new houses had been built, many old ones repaired and enlarged a little. The streets were still narrow and many of them winding about. The greatest signs of life were at the river's edge. The newer American emigrant came for land and secured it outside. Every week some of the better class English who were not in the fur trade went to Quebec or Montreal to be under their own rulers.

There was not an entire feeling of security. Since Pontiac there had been no great Indian leader, but many subordinate chiefs who were very sore over the treaties. There was an Indian prophet, twin brother to the chief Tecumseh who afterward led his people to a bloody war, who used his rude eloquence to unite the warring tribes in one nation by wild visions he foresaw of their greatness.

Marauding tribes still harassed parties of travelers, but about Detroit they were peaceable; and many joined in the festivities of a day like this. While as farm laborers they were of little worth, they were often useful at the wharves, and as boatmen.

Two years had brought a strange, new life to Jeanne, so imperceptibly that she was now a puzzle to herself. The child had disappeared, the growing girl she hardly knew. The wild feats that had once been the admiration of the children pleased her no longer. The children had grown as well. The boys tilled the fields with their fathers, worked in shops or on the docks, or were employed about the Fort. Some few, smitten with military ardor, were in training for future soldiers. The field for girls had grown wider. Beside the household employments there were spinning and sewing. The Indian women had made a coarse kind of lace worked with beads that the French maidens improved upon and disposed of to the better class. Or the more hoydenish ones delighted to work in the fields with their brothers, enjoying the outdoor life.

For a year Jeanne had kept on with her master, though at spring a wild impulse of liberty threatened to sweep her from her moorings.

"Why do I feel so?" she inquired almost fiercely of the master. "Something stifles me! Then I wish I had been made a bird to fly up and up until I had left the earth. Oh, what glorious thing is in the bird's mind when he can look into the very heavens, soaring out of sight?"

"There is nothing in the bird's mind, except to find a mate, build a nest and rear some young; to feed them until they can care for themselves, and, though there is much romance about the mother bird, they are always eager to get rid of their offspring. He sings because God has given him a song, his language. But he has no thought of heaven."

"Oh, he must have!" she cried passionately.

The master studied her.

"Art thou ready to die, to go out of the world, to be put into the dark ground?"

"Oh, no! no!" Jeanne shuddered. "It is because I like to live, to breathe the sweet air, to run over the grass, to linger about the woods and hear all the voices. The pines have one tone, the hemlocks and spruces another, and the soft swish of the larches is like the last tender notes of some of the hymns I sing with the sisters occasionally. And the sun is so glorious! He clasps the baby leaves in his unseen hands and they grow, and he makes the blades of grass to dance for very joy. I catch him in my hands, too; I steep my face in the floods of golden light and all the air is full of stars. Oh, no, I would not, could not die! I would like to live forever. Even Pani is in no haste to die."

"Thou art a strange child, surely. I have read of some such in books. And I wonder that the heaven of the nuns does not take more hold of thee."

"But I do not like the black gowns, and the coifs so close over their ears, and the little rooms in which one is buried alive. For it seems like dying before one's time, like being half dead in a gay, glad world. Did not God give it to us to enjoy?"

The master nodded. He wondered when she was in these strange moods. And he noticed that the mad pranks grew less, that there were days when she studied like a soul possessed, and paid little heed to those about her.

But when a foreign letter with a great waxen seal came to her one day her delight knew no bounds. It was not a noisy joy, however.

"Let us go out under the oak," she said to Pani.

The children were playing about. Wenonah looked up from her work and smiled.

"No, children," said Jeanne with a wave of the hand, "I cannot have you now. You may come to-morrow. This afternoon is all mine."

It was a pleasant, grave, fatherly letter. M. St. Armand had found much to do, and presently he would go to England. Laurent was at a school where he should leave him for a year.

"Listen," said Jeanne when they were both seated on the short turf that was half moss, "a grown man at school—is it not funny?" and she laughed gayly.

"But there are young men sent to Quebec and Montreal, and to that southern town, New York. And young women, too. But I hope thou wilt know enough, Jeanne, without all this journeying."

Pani studied her with great perplexity.

"But he wants me to know many things—as if I were a rich girl! I know my English quite well and can read in it. And, Pani, how wonderful that a letter can talk as if one were beside you!"

She read it over and over. Some words she wondered at. The great city with its handsome churches and gardens and walks and palaces, how beautiful it must be! It was remarkable that she had no longing, envious feeling. She was so full of delight there was no room.

They sat still a long while. She patted the thin, brown hand, then laid her soft cheek on it or made a cradle of it for her chin.

"Pani," she said at length, "how splendid it would be to have M. St. Armand for one's father! I have never cared for any girl's father, but M. St. Armand would be gentle and kind. I think, too, he could smooth away all the sort of cobweb things that haunt one's brain and the thoughts you cannot make take any shape but go floating like drifts in the sky, until you are lost in the clouds."

Pani looked over toward the river. Like the master, the child's strange thoughts puzzled her, but she was afraid they were wrong. The master wished that she could be translated to some wider living.

It took Jeanne several days to answer her letter, but every hour was one of exultant joy. It gave her hardly less delight than the reception of his. Then it was to be sent to New York by Monsieur Fleury, who had dealings back and forth.

There had been a great wedding at the Fleury house. Madelon had married a titled French gentleman and gone to Montreal.

"Oh!" cried Jeanne to Monsieur Fleury, "you will be very careful and not let it get lost. I took so much pains with it. And when it gets to New York—"

"A ship takes it to France. See, child, there is all this bundle to go, and there are many valuable papers in it. Do not fear;" and he smiled. "But what has M. St. Armand to say to you?"

"Oh, many things about what I should learn. I have already studied much that he asked me to, and he will be very glad to hear that."

M. Fleury smiled indulgently, and Jeanne with a proud step went down the paved walk bordered with flowers, a great innovation for that time. But his wife voiced his thoughts when she said:—

"Do you not think it rather foolish that Monsieur St. Armand should trouble his head about a child like that? No one knows to what sort of people she has belonged. And she will marry some habitan who cares little whether she can write a letter or not."

"She will have quite a dowry. She ought to marry well. A little learning will not hurt her."

"M. Bellestre must have known more than he confessed," with suspicion in her voice.

M. Fleury nodded assentingly.

Jeanne had been quite taken into Madame De Ber's good graces again. The money had worked wonders with her, only she did not see the need of it being spent upon an education. There was Pierre, who would be about the right age, but would she want Pierre to have that kind of a wife?

Rose and Jeanne became very neighborly. Marie was a happy, commonplace wife, who really adored her rough husband, and was always extolling him. He had never learned to dance, but he was a swift skater, and could row with anybody in a match. Then there was a little son, not at all to Jeanne's liking, for he had a wide mouth and no nose to speak of.

"He is not as pretty as Aurel," she said.

"He will grow prettier," returned the proud grandmother, sharply.

That autumn the old schoolmaster did not come back. Some other schools had been started. M. Loisel sounded his charge as to whether she would not go to Montreal to school, but she decisively declined.

And now another spring had come, and Jeanne was a tall girl, but she would not put up her hair nor wear a coif. Father Rameau had been sent on a mission to St. Ignace. The new priest that came did not agree very well with Father Gilbert. He wanted to establish some Ursulines on a much stricter plan than the few sisters had been accustomed to, and there were bickerings and strained feelings. Beside, the Protestants were making some headway in the town.

"It is not to be wondered at," said the new priest to many of his flock. "One could hardly tell what you are. There must be better regulations."

"But we pay our tithes regularly. And Father Rameau—"

"I am tired of Father Rameau!" said the priest angrily. "And the fiddling and the dancing!"

"I do not like the quarreling," commented Jeanne. "And in the little chapel they all agree. They worship God, and not the Saints or the Virgin."

"But the Virgin was a woman and is tender to us, and will intercede for us," interposed Pani.

Jeanne went to the English school that winter but the children were not much to her mind.

And now it was May, and Jeanne suddenly decided that she was tired of school.

"Pierre has come home!" almost shouted Rose to the two sitting in the doorway. "And he is a big man with a heavy voice, and, would you believe, he fairly lifted mother off her feet, and she tried to box his ears, but could not, and we all laughed so. He will be at the Fete to-morrow."

"Come, Pani," Jeanne said quite early, "we will hunt for some flowers. Susette Mass said we were to bring as many as we could."

"But—there will be the procession and the blessings—"

"And you will like that. Then we can be first to put some flowers on the shrines, maybe."

That won Pani. So together they went. At the edge of the wood wild flowers had begun to bloom, and they gathered handfuls. Little maple trees just coming up had four tiny red leaves that looked like a blossom.

There under a great birch tree was a small wooden temple with a weather-beaten cross on top, and on a shelf inside, raised a little from the ground, stood a plaster cast of the Virgin. Jeanne sprinkled the white blossoms of the wild strawberry all around. Pani knelt and said a little prayer.

Susette Mass ran to meet them.

"Oh, how early you are!" she cried. "And how beautiful! Where did you find so many flowers? Some must go to the chapel."

"There will be plenty to give to the chapel. There is another shrine somewhere."

"And they say you are not a good Catholic!"

"I would like to be good. Sometimes I try," returned Jeanne, softly, and her eyes looked like a saint's, Susette thought.

Pani led the way to the other shrine and while the child scattered flowers and stood in silent reverence, Pani knelt and prayed. Then the throng of gayly dressed girls and laughing young men were coming from several quarters and the procession formed amid much chattering.

Afterward there were games of various sorts, tests of strength, running and jumping, and the Indian game of ball, which was wilder and more exciting than the French.

"Oh, here you are!" exclaimed Rose De Ber. On one side was Martin Lavosse, a well-favored young fellow, and on the other a great giant, it seemed to Jeanne. For a moment she felt afraid.

"Why, it isn't Jeanne Angelot?" Pierre caught both hands and almost crushed them, and looked into the deep blue eyes with such eagerness that the warm color flew to Jeanne's forehead. "Oh, how beautiful you have grown!"

He bent down a little and uttered it in a whisper. Jeanne flushed and then was angry at herself for the rising color.

Pierre was fascinated anew. More than once in the two years he had smiled at his infatuation for the wild little girl who might be half Indian so far as anyone knew. No, not half—but very likely a little. What a temper she had, too! He had nearly forgotten all her charms. Of course it had been a childish intimacy. He had driven her in his dog sledge over the ice, he had watched her climb trees to his daring, they had been out in his father's canoe when she would paddle and he was almost afraid of tipping over. Really he had run risks of his life for her foolishness. And his foolishness had been in begging her to promise to marry him!

He had seen quite a good deal of the world since, and been treated as a man. In his slow-thoughted fashion he saw her the same wild, willful, obstinate little thing. Rose was a young lady, that was natural, but Jeanne—

"They are going to dance. Hear the fiddles! It is one of the great amusements up there," indicating the North with his head. "Only half the time you dance with boys—young fellows;" and he gave a chuckling laugh. "You see there is a scarcity of women. The Indian girls stand a good chance. Only a good many of the men have left wives and children at home."

"Did you like it?" Jeanne asked with interest.

Pierre shrugged his broad shoulders.

"At first I hated it. I would have run away, but if I had come back to Detroit everybody would have laughed and my father would have beaten me. Now he looks me over as if he knew I was worth something. Why, I am taller than he! And I have learned a great deal about making money."

They were done tuning up the violins and all the air was soft with the natural melody of birds and whispering winds. This was broken by a stentorian shout, and men and maids fell into places. Pierre grasped Jeanne's hand so tightly that she winced. With the other hand he caught one of the streamers. There was a great scramble for them. And when, as soon as the dancing was in earnest, a young fellow had to let his streamer go in turning his partner, some one caught it and a merry shout rang through the group.

"How stupid you are!" cried Rose to Martin. "Why did you not catch that streamer? Now we are on the outside." She pouted her pretty lips. "Are you bewitched with Pierre and Jeanne?"

"How beautifully she dances, and Pierre for a clumsy, big fellow is not bad."

Hugh Pallent had caught a streamer and held out his hand to Rose.

"Well, amuse yourself with looking at them, Monsieur," returned Rose pettishly. "As for me, I came to dance," and Pallent whisked her off.

Martin's eyes followed them, other eyes as well.

Pierre threw his streamer with a sleight of hand one would hardly have looked for, and caught it again amid the cheers of his companions. Round they went, only once losing their place in the whole circle. The violins flew faster, the dancing grew almost furious, eyes sparkled and cheeks bloomed.

"I am tired," Jeanne said, and lagging she half drew Pierre out of the circle.

"Tired! I could dance forever with you."

"But you must not. See how the mothers are watching you for a chance, and the girls will be proud enough to have you ask them."

"I am not going to;" shrugging his square shoulders.

"Oh, yes, you are!" with a pretty air of authority.

Jeanne saw envious eyes wandering in her direction. She did not know how she outshone most of the girls, with an air that was so different from the ordinary. Her white cotton gown had a strip of bright, curiously worked embroidery above the hem and around the square neck that gave her exquisite throat full play. The sleeves came to the elbow, and both hands and arms were beautiful. Her skin was many shades fairer, her cheeks like the heart of a rose, and her mouth dimpled in the corners. Her lithe figure had none of the squareness of the ordinary habitan, and every movement was grace itself.

"If you will not dance, let us walk, then. I have so much to say—"

"There will be all summer to say it in. And there is only one May dance. Susette!"

Susette came with sparkling eyes.

"This young man is dance bewitched. See how he has changed. We can hardly believe it is the Pierre we used to run races and climb trees with in nutting time. And he knows how to dance;" laughing.

Pierre held out his hand, but there was a shade of reluctance in his eyes.

"I thought you were never going to throw over that great giant," said Martin Lavosse. "I suppose every girl will go crazy about him because he has been up north and made some money. His father has planned to take him into business. Jeanne, dance with me."

"No, not now. I am tired."

"I should think you would be, pulled around at that rate. Look, Susette can hardly keep up, and her braids have tumbled."

"Did I look like that?" asked Jeanne with sudden disapprobation in her tone.

"Oh, no, no! You were like—like the fairies and wood things old Mere Michaud tells of. Your hair just floated around like a cloud full of twilight—"

"No, the black ones when the thunderstorm is coming on," she returned mischievously.

"It was beautiful and full of waves. And you are so straight and slim. You just floated."

"And you watched me and lost your streamer twice. Rose did not like it."

He was a little jealous and a little vexed at Rose giving him the go by in such a pointed manner. He would get even with her.

"Why did you go off so early? We all went up for you."

"I wanted to gather flowers for the shrines."

"But we could have gone, too."

"No, it would have been too late. It was such a pleasure to Pani. She can't dance, you know."

"Let us walk around and see the tables."

They were being spread out on the green sward, planks raised a foot or so, for every one would sit on the grass. Some of the Indian women had booths, and were already selling birch and sassafras beer, pipes and tobacco, and maple sugar. Little ones were running helter-skelter, tumbling down and getting up without a whimper. Here a knot of men were playing cards or dominoes. It was a pretty scene, and needed only cavaliers and the glittering, stately stepping dames to make it a picture of old France.

They were all tired and breathless with the dance presently, and threw themselves around on the grass for a bit of rest. There was laughing and chattering, and bright eyes full of mirth sent coquettish glances first on this side, then on that. Susette had borne off her partner in triumph to see her mother, and there were old neighbors welcoming and complimenting Pierre De Ber.

"Pierre," said a stout fellow banteringly, "you have shown us your improvement in dancing. As I remember you were a rather clumsy boy, too big for your years. Now they are going to try feats of skill and strength. After that we shall have some of the Indian women run a race. Monsieur De Ber, we shall be glad to count you in, if you have the daring to compete with the stay-at-homes."

"For shame, Hugh! What kind of an invitation is that? Pierre, you do not look as if you had spent all your prowess in dancing;" glancing admiringly at the big fellow.

"You will see. Give me a trial." Pierre was nettled at the first speaker's tone. "I have not been up on the Mich for nothing. You fellows think the river and Lake St. Clair half the world. You should see Lake Michigan and Lake Superior."

"Yes, Pierre," spoke up another. "You used to be good on a jump. Come and try to distance us stay-at-homes, if you haven't grown too heavy."

They were marking off a place for the jumping on a level, and at a short distance hurdles of different heights had been put up.

Pierre had been the butt of several things in his boyish days, but, though a heavy lad, often excelled in jumping. The chaffing stirred his spirit. He would show what he could do. And Jeanne should see it. What did he care for Susette's shining eyes!

Two or three supple young fellows, two older ones with a well-seasoned appearance, stood on the mark. Pierre eyed it.

"No," he said, "it is not fair. I'm a sight heavier than those. And I won't take the glory from them. But if you are all agreed I'll try the other."

"Why, man, the other is a deal harder."

Pierre nodded indifferently.

The first started like a young athlete; a running jump and it fell short. There was a great laugh of derision. But the second was more successful and a shout went up. The next one leaped over the mark. Four of them won.

Rose was piqued that Martin should sit all this while on the grass chatting to Jeanne. She came around to them.

"Pierre is going to jump," she announced. "I'm sorry, but they badgered him into it. They were really envious of his dancing."

Jeanne rose. "I do wonder where Pani is!" she said. "Shall we go nearer?"

"Oh, Pani is with the Indian women over there at the booths. No, stay, Jeanne," and Rose caught her hand. "Look! look! Why, they might almost be birds. Isn't it grand? But—Pierre—"

She might have spared her anxiety. Pierre came over with a splendid flying leap, clearing the bar better than his predecessor. A wild shout went up and Pierre's hand was clasped and shaken with a hearty approval. The girls crowded around him, and all was noisy jollity. Jeanne simply glanced up and he caught her eye.

"I have pleased her this time," he thought.

The racing of the squaws, though some indeed were quite young girls, was productive of much amusement. This was the only trial that had a prize attached to it,—a beautiful blanket, for money was a scarce commodity. A slim, young damsel won it.

"Jeanne," and Pierre bent over her, for, though she was taller than the average, he was head and almost shoulders above her, "Jeanne, you could have beaten them all."

She flushed. "I do not run races anymore," she returned with dignity.

He sighed. "That was a happy old time. How long ago it seems! Jeanne—are you glad to see me? You are so—so grave. And all the time I have been thinking of the child—I forgot you were to grow."

Some one blew a horn long and loud that sent echoes among the trees a thousand times more beautiful than the sound itself. The tables, if they could be called that, were spread, and in no time were surrounded by merry, laughing, chatting groups, who brought with them the appetites of the woods and wilds, hardly leaving crumbs for the birds.

After that there was dancing again and rambling around, and Pierre was made much of by the mothers. It was a proud day for Madame De Ber, and she glanced about among the girls to see whom of them she would choose for a daughter-in-law. For now Pierre could have his pick of them all.



CHAPTER XI.

LOVE, LIKE THE ROSE, IS BRIERY.

Jeanne Angelot sat in the doorway in the moonlight silvering the street. There were so many nooks and places in shadow that everything had a weird, fantastic look. The small garrison were quiet, and many of them asleep by nine o'clock. Early hours was the rule except in what were called the great houses. But in this out of the way nook few pedestrians ever passed in the evening.

"Child, are you not coming to bed? Why do you sit there? You said you were tired."

Pani was crooning over a handful of fire. The May sunshine had not penetrated all the houses, and her old blood had lost its heat.

"Yes, I was. What with the dancing and the walking about and all I was very weary. I want to get rested. It is so quiet and lovely."

"You can rest in bed."

"I want to stay here a little while longer. Do not mind me, but go to bed yourself."

The voice was tender, persuasive, but Pani did not stir. Now and then she felt uncertain of the child.

"Was it not a happy day to you, ma fille?"

"Yes," with soft brevity.

Had it been happy? At different times during the past two years a curious something, like a great wave, had swept over her, bearing her away, yet slowly she seemed to float back. Only it was never quite the same—the shores, the woods, the birds, the squirrels, the deer that came and looked at her with unafraid eyes, impressed her with some new, inexplicable emotion. What meaning was behind them?

But to-night she could not go back. She had passed the unknown boundary. Her limited knowledge could not understand the unfolding, the budding of womanhood, whose next change was blossoming. It had been a day of varied emotions. If she could have run up the hillside with no curious eyes upon her, sung with the birds, gathered great handfuls of daisies and bell flowers, tumbled up the pink and yellow fungus that grew around the tree roots, studied the bits of crisp moss that stood up like sentinels, with their red caps, and if you trod on them bristled up again, or if she could have climbed the trees and swung from branch to branch in the wavering flecks of sunshine as she did only such a little while ago, all would have been well. What was it restrained her? Was it the throng of people? She had enjoyed startling them with a kind of bravado. That was childhood. Ah, yes. Everybody grew up, and these wild antics no longer pleased. Oh, could she not go back and have it all over again?

She had danced and laughed. Pierre had tried to keep her a good deal to himself, but she had been elusive as a golden mote dancing up and down. She seemed to understand what this sense of appropriating meant, and she did not like it.

And then Martin Lavosse had been curious as well. Rose and he were not betrothed, and Rose was like a gay humming bird, sipping pleasure and then away. Madame De Ber had certainly grown less strict. But Martin was still very young and poor, and Rose could do better with her pretty face. Like a shrewd, experienced person she offered no opposition that would be like a breeze to a smoldering flame. There was Edouard Loisel, the notary's nephew, and even if he was one of the best fiddlers in town, he had a head for business as well, and was a shrewd trader. M. Loisel had no children of his own and only these two nephews, and if Edouard fancied Rose before Martin was ready to speak—so the mother had a blind eye for Rose's pretty coquetries in that direction; but Rose did not like to have Martin quite so devoted to any other girl as he seemed to be to Jeanne.

Jeanne had not liked it at all. She had been good friends and comrades with the boys, but now they were grown and had curious ideas of holding one's hand and looking into one's eyes that intensified the new feeling penetrating every pulse. If only she might run away somewhere. If Pani were not so old they would go to the other side of the mountain and build a hut and live together there. She did not believe the Indians would molest them. Anything to get away from this strange burthen pressing down upon her that she knew not was womanhood, and be free once more.

She rose presently and went in. Pani was a heap in the chimney corner, she saw her by the long silver ray that fell across the floor.

"Pani! Pani!" she cried vehemently.

Her arms were around the neck and the face was lifted up, kissed with a fervor she had never experienced before.

"My little one! my little one!" sighed the woman.

"Come, let us go to bed." There was an eagerness in the tone that comforted the woman.

The next morning Detroit was at work betimes. There was no fashion of loitering then; when the sun flung out his golden arrows that dispelled the night, men and women were cheerfully astir.

"I must go and get some silk for Wenonah; she has some embroidery to finish for the wife of one of the officers," exclaimed Jeanne. "And then I will take it to her."

So if Pierre dropped in—

There were some stores down on St. Louis street where the imported goods from Montreal and Quebec were kept. Laces and finery for the quality, silks and brocades, hard as the times were. Jeanne tripped along gayly. She would be happy this morning anyhow, as if she was putting off some impending evil.

"Take care, child! Ah, it is Jeanne Angelot. Did I run over thee, or thou over me?" laughing. "I have not on my glasses, but I ought to see a tall slip of a girl like thee."

"Pardon, Monsieur. I was in haste and heedless."

"I have something for thee that will gladden thy heart—a letter. Let me see—" beginning to search his pockets, and then taking out a great leathern wallet. "No?" staring in surprise. "Then I must have left it on my desk at home. Canst thou spend time to run up and get it?"

"Oh, gladly." The words had a ring of joy that touched the man's heart.

"It is well, Mam'selle, that it comes from the father, since it is received with such delight."

She did not catch the double meaning. Indeed, Laurent was far from her thoughts.

"Thank you a thousand times," with her radiant smile, and he carried the bright face into his dingy warehouse.

She went on her way blithe as the gayest bird. A letter from M. St. Armand! It had been so long that sometimes she was afraid he might be dead, like M. Bellestre. The birds were singing. "A letter," they caroled; "a letter, a l-e-t-t-e-r," dwelling on every sound with enchanting tenderness.

The old Fleury house overlooked the military garden to the west, and the river to the east. There had been an addition built to it, a wing that placed the hall in the middle. It was wide, and the door at each end was set open. At the back were glimpses of all kinds of greenery and the fragrance of blossoming shrubs. A great enameled jar stood midway of the hall and had in it a tall blooming rose kept through the winter indoors, a Spanish rose growing wild in its own country. The floor was polished, the fur rugs had been stowed away, and the curious Indian grass mats exhaled a peculiar fragrance. A bird cage hung up high and its inmate was warbling an exquisite melody. Jeanne stood quite still and a sense of harmonious beauty penetrated her, gave her a vague impression of having sometime been part and parcel of it.

"What is it?" demanded the Indian servant. There were very few negroes in Detroit, and although there were no factories or mills, French girls seldom hired out for domestics.

"Madame Fleury—Monsieur sent me for a letter lying on his desk," Jeanne said in a half hesitating manner.

The servant stepped into the room to consult her mistress. Then she said to Jeanne:—

"Walk in here, Mademoiselle."

The room was much more richly appointed than the hall, though the polished floor was quite bare. A great high-backed settee with a carved top was covered with some flowered stuff in which golden threads shimmered; there was a tall escritoire going nearly up to the ceiling, the bottom with drawers that had curious brass handles, rings spouting out of a dragon's mouth. There were glass doors above and books and strange ornaments and minerals on the shelves. On the high mantel, and very few houses could boast them, stood brass candlesticks and vases of colored glass that had come from Venice. There were some quaint portraits, family heirlooms ranged round the wall, and chairs with carved legs and stuffed backs and seats.

On a worktable lay a book and a piece of lace work over a cushion full of pins. By it sat a young lady in musing mood.

She, too, said, "What is it?" but her voice had a soft, lingering cadence.

Jeanne explained meeting M. Fleury and his message, but her manner was shy and hesitating.

"Oh, then you are Jeanne Angelot, I suppose?" half assertion, half inquiry.

"Yes, Mademoiselle," and she folded her hands.

"I think I remember you as a little child. You lived with an Indian woman and were a"—no, she could not say "foundling" to this beautiful girl, who might have been born to the purple, so fine was her figure, her air, the very atmosphere surrounding her.

"I was given to her—Pani. My mother had died," she replied, simply.

"Yes—a letter. Let me see." She rose and went through a wide open doorway. Jeanne's eyes followed her. The walls seemed full of arms and hunting trophies and fishing tackle, and in the center of the room a sort of table with drawers down one side.

"Yes, here. 'Mademoiselle Jeanne Angelot.'" She seemed to study the writing. She was quite pretty, Jeanne thought, though rather pale, and her silken gown looped up at the side with a great bow of ribbon, fell at the back in a long train. Her movements were so soft and gliding that the girl was half enchanted.

"You still live with—with the woman?"

"M. Bellestre gave her the house. It is small, but big enough for us two. Yes, Mademoiselle. Thank you," as she placed the letter in Jeanne's hand, and received in return an enchanting smile. With a courtesy she left the room, and walked slowly down the path, trying to think. Some girl, for there was gossip even in those days, had said that Mam'selle's lover had proved false to her, and married some one else in one of the southern cities. Jeanne felt sorry for her.

Lisa Fleury wondered why so much beauty had been given to a girl who could make no use of it.

Jeanne hugged her letter to her heart. It had been so long, so long that she felt afraid she would never hear again. She wanted to run every step of the way, last summer she would have. She almost forgot Wenonah and the silk, then laughed at herself, and outside of the palisades she did run.

"You are so good," Wenonah said. "Look at this embroidery,—is it not grand? And that I used to color threads where now I can use beautiful silk. It shines like the sun. The white people have wonderful ways."

Jeanne laughed and opened her letter. She could wait no longer. Oh, delightful news! She laughed again in sheer delight, soft, rippling notes.

"What is it pleases thee so, Mam'selle?"

"It is my friend who comes back, the grand Monsieur with the beautiful white beard, for whose sake I learned to write. I am glad I have learned so many things. By another spring he will be here!"

Then Jeanne forgot the somber garment of womanhood that shadowed her last night, and danced in the very gladness of her heart. Wenonah smiled and then sighed. What if this man of so many years should want to marry the child? Such things had been. And there was that fine young De Ber just come home. But then, a year was a good while.

"I must go and tell Pani," and she was off like a bird.

Oh, what a glad day it was! The maypole and the dancing were as nothing to it. After she had told over her news and they had partaken of a simple meal, she dragged the Indian woman off to her favorite haunt in the woods, where three great tree boles made a pretty shelter and where Pani always fell asleep.

Bees were out buzzing, their curious accompaniment to their work. Or were they scolding because flowers were not sweeter? Yellow butterflies made a dazzle in the air, that was transparent to-day. The white birches were scattering their last year's garments, and she gathered quite a roll. Ah, what a wonderful thing it was to live and breathe this fragrant air! It exhilarated her with joy as drinking wine might another. The mighty spirit of nature penetrated every pulse.

From a little farther up she could see the blue waters, and the distant horizon seemed to bound the lake. Would she ever visit the grand places of the world? What was a great city such as Quebec like? Would she stay here for years and years and grow old like Pani? For somehow she could not fancy herself in a home with a husband like Marie Beeson, or Madelon Freche, or several of the girls a little older than herself. The commonplaces of life, the monotonous work, the continual admiration and approval of one man who seemed in no way admirable would be slow death.

"Which is a warning that I must not get married," she thought, and her gay laugh rippled under the trees in soft echoes.

She felt more certain of her resolve that evening when Pierre came.

"Where were you all the afternoon?" he said, almost crossly. "I was here twice. I felt sure you would expect me."

Jeanne flushed guiltily. She knew she had gone to escape such an infliction, and she was secretly glad, yet somehow her heart pricked her.

"Oh, you surely have not forgotten that I live half the time in the woods;" glancing up mischievously.

"Haven't you outgrown that? There was enough of it yesterday," he said.

"You ought not to complain. What a welcome you had, and what a triumph, too!"

"Oh, that was not much. You should see the leaping and the wrestling up north. And the great bounds with the pole! That's the thing when one has a long journey. And the snowshoes—ah, that is the sport!"

"You liked it up there?"

"I was desperately homesick at first. I had half a mind to run away. But when I once got really used to the people and the life—it was the making of me, Jeanne."

He stretched up proudly and swelled up his broad chest, enjoying his manhood.

"You will go back?" she asked, tentatively.

"Well—that depends. Father wants me to stay. He begins to see that I am worth something. But pouf! how do people live in this crowded up town in the winter! It is dirtier than ever. The Americans have not improved it much. You see there is Rose and Angelique, before Baptiste, and he is rather puny, and father is getting old. Then, I could go up north every two or three years. Well, one finds out your worth when you go away."

He gave a loud, rather exultant laugh that jarred on Jeanne. Why were these rough characteristics so repellant to her? She had lived with them all her short life. From whence came the other side of her nature that longed for refinement, cultivated speech, and manners? And people of real education, not merely the business faculty, the figuring and bargain making, were more to her taste. M. Fleury was a gentleman, like M. St. Armand.

Pierre stretched out his long legs and crossed his feet, then slipped his hands into his pockets. He seemed to take up half the room.

"What have you been doing all the time I was away?" he said, when the awkwardness of the silence began to oppress him.

Jeanne made a little crease in her forehead, and a curl came to the rose red lip.

"I went to school until Christmas, then there was no teacher for a while. And when spring was coming I decided not to go back. I read at home. I have some books, and I write to improve myself. I can do it quite well in English. Then there is some one at the Fort, a sort of minister, who has a class down in the town, St. Louis street, and I go there."

"Is the minister a Catholic?"

"No," she answered, briefly.

"That is bad." He shook his head disapprovingly. "But you go to church?"

"There is a little chapel and I like the talk and the singing. I know two girls who go there. Sometimes I go with Pani to St. Anne's."

"But you should go all the time, Jeanne. Religion is especially for women. They have the children to bring up and to pray for their husbands, when they are on voyages or in dangers."

Pierre delivered this with an unpleasant air of masculine authority which Jeanne resented in her inmost soul. So she exclaimed rather curtly:—

"We will not discuss religion, Monsieur Pierre."

The young man looked amazed. He gave the fringe on his deerskin legging a sharp twitch.

"You are still briery, Mam'selle. And yet you are so beautiful that you ought to be gentle as well."

"Why do people want to tell me that I am beautiful? Do they not suppose I can see it?" Jeanne flung out, impatiently.

"Because it is a sweet thing to say what the speaker feels. And beauty and goodness should go hand in hand."

"I am for myself alone;" she returned, proudly. "And if I do not suit other people they may take the less of me. There are many pretty girls."

"Oh, Mam'selle," he exclaimed, beseechingly, "do not let us quarrel immediately, when I have thought of you so often and longed to see you so much! And now that my mother says pleasant things about you—she is not so opposed to learning since Tony Beeson has been teaching Marie to read and write and figure—and we are all such friends—"

Ah, if they could remain only friends! But Jeanne mistrusted the outcome of it.

"Then tell me about the great North instead of talking foolishness; the Straits and the wonderful land of snow beyond, and the beautiful islands! I like to hear of countries. And, Pierre, far to the south flowers bloom and fruit ripens all the year round, luscious things that we know nothing about."

Pierre's descriptive faculties were not of a high order. Still when he was once under way describing some of the skating and sledging matches he did very well, and in this there was no dangerous ground.

The great bell at the Fort clanged out nine.

"It is time to go," Jeanne exclaimed, rising. "That is the signal. And Pani has fallen asleep."

Pierre rose disconcerted. The bright face was merry and friendly, that was all. Yesterday other girls had treated him with more real warmth and pleasure. But there was a certain authority about her not to be gainsaid.

"Good night, then," rather gruffly.

"He loves thee, ma mie. Hast thou no pity on him?" said Pani, looking earnestly at the lovely face.

"I do not want to be loved;" and she gave a dissentient, shivering motion. "It displeases me."

"But I am old. And when I am gone—"

The pathetic voice touched the girl and she put her arms around the shrunken neck.

"I shall not let you go, ever. I shall try charms and get potions from your nation. And then, M. St. Armand is to come. Let us go to bed. I want to dream about him."

One of the pitiful mysteries never to be explained is why a man or a woman should go on loving hopelessly. For Pierre De Ber had loved Jeanne in boyhood, in spite of rebuffs; and there was a certain dogged tenacity in his nature that fought against denial. A narrow idea, too, that a girl must eventually see what was best for her, and in this he gained Pani's sympathy and good will for his wooing.

He was not to be easily daunted. He had improved greatly and gained a certain self-reliance that at once won him respect. A fine, tall fellow, up in business methods, knowing much of the changes of the fur trade, and with shrewdness enough to take advantage where it could be found without absolute dishonesty, he was consulted by the more cautious traders on many points.

"Thou hast a fine son," one and another would say to M. De Ber; and the father was mightily gratified.

There were many pleasures for the young people. It was not all work in their lives. Jeanne joined the parties; she liked the canoeing on the river, the picnics to the small islands about, and the dances often given moonlight evenings on the farms. For never was there a more pleasure loving people with all their industry. And then, indeed, simple gowns were good enough for most occasions.

Jeanne was ever on the watch not to be left alone with Pierre. Sometimes she half suspected Pani of being in league with the young man. So she took one and another of the admirers who suited her best, bestowing her favors very impartially, she thought, and verging on the other hand to the subtle dangers of coquetry. What was there in her smile that should seem to summon one with a spell of witchery?

Madame De Ber was full of capricious moods as well. She loved her son, and was very proud of him. She selected this girl and that, but no, it was useless.

"He has no eyes for anyone but Jeanne," declared Rose half angrily, sore at Martin's defection as well, though she was not sure she wanted him. "She coquets first with one, then with another, then holds her head stiffly above them all. And at the Whitsun dance there was a young lieutenant who followed her about and she made so much of him that I was ashamed of her for a French maid."

Rose delivered herself with severe dignity, though she had been very proud to dance with the American herself.

"Yes, I wish Pierre would see some charm elsewhere. He is old enough now to marry. And Jeanne Angelot may be only very little French, though her skin has bleached up clearer, and she puts on delicate airs with her accent. She will not make a good wife."

"You are talking of Jeanne," and the big body nearly filled the window, that had no hangings in summer, and the sash was swung open for air. Pierre leaned his elbows on the sill, and his face flushed deeply. "You do not like her, I know, but she is the prettiest girl in Detroit, and she has a dowry as well."

"And that has a tint of scandal about it," rejoined the mother scornfully.

"But Father Rameau disproved that. And, whatever she is, even if she were half Indian, I love her! I have always loved her. And I shall marry her, even if I have to take her up north and spend my whole life there. I know how to make money, and we shall do well enough. And that will be the upshot if you and my father oppose me, though I think it is more you and Rose."

"Did ever a French son talk so to his mother before? If this is northern manners and respect—"

Madame De Ber dropped into a chair and began to cry, and then, a very unusual thing it must be confessed, went into hysterics.

"Oh, you have killed her!" screamed Rose.

"She is not dead. Dead people do not make such a noise. Maman, maman," the endearing term of childhood, "do not be so vexed. I will be a good son to you always, but I cannot make myself miserable by marrying one woman when I love another;" and he kissed her fondly, caressing her with his strong hands.

The storm blew over presently. That evening when Pere De Ber heard the story he said, a little gruffly: "Let the boy alone. He is a fine son and smart, and I need his help. I am not as stout as I used to be. And, Marie, thou rememberest that thou wert my choice and not that of any go-between. We have been happy and had fine children because we loved each other. The girl is pretty and sweet."

They came to neighborly sailing after a while. Jeanne knew nothing of the dispute, but one day on the river when Martin's canoe was keeping time with hers, and he making pretty speeches to her, she said:—

"It is not fair nor right that you should pay such devotion to me, Martin. Rose does not like it, and it makes bad friends. And I think you care for her, so it is only a jealous play and keeps me uncomfortable."

"Rose does not care for me. She is flying at higher game. And if she cannot succeed, I will not be whistled back like a dog whose master has kicked him," cried the young fellow indignantly.

"Rose has said I coquetted with you," Jeanne exclaimed with a roseate flush and courageous honesty.

"I wish it was something more. Jeanne, you are the sweetest girl in all Detroit."

"Oh, no, Martin, nor the prettiest, nor the girl who will make the best wife. And I do not want any lovers, nor to be married, which, I suppose, is a queer thing. Sometimes I think I will stay in the house altogether, but it is so warm and gets dreary, and out-of-doors is so beautiful with sunshine and fragrant air. But if I cannot be friends with anyone—"

"We will be friends, then," said Martin Lavosse.



CHAPTER XII.

PIERRE.

When Madame De Ber found that Pierre was growing moody and dispirited and talked of going up north again, her mother's heart relented. Moreover, she could not but see that Jeanne was a great favorite in spite of her wild forest ways and love of solitude with a book in hand. Her little nook had become a sort of court, so she went there no more, for some one was sure to track her. And the great oak was too well known. She would drop down the river and fasten her canoe in some sheltered spot, and finding a comfortable place sit and read or dream. The chapel parson was much interested in her and lent her some wonderful books,—a strange story in measured lines by one John Milton, and a history of France that seemed so curious to her she could hardly believe such people had lived, but the parson said it was all true and that there were histories of many other countries. But she liked this because Monsieur St. Armand had gone there.

Yet better than all were the dreams of his return. She could see the vessel come sailing up the beautiful river and the tall, fine figure with the long, silken beard snowy white, and the blue eyes, the smiling mouth, hear the voice that had so much music in it, and feel the clasp of the hand soft as that of any of the fine ladies. Birds sang and insects chirped, wild ducks and swans chattered to their neighbors, and great flocks made a dazzle across the blue sky. Some frogs in marshy places gave choruses in every key, but nothing disturbed her.

What then?

Something different would come to her life. An old Indian squaw had told her fortune a year agone. "You will have many lovers and many adventures," she said, "and people coming from far to claim you, but you will not go with them. And then another old man, like a father, will take you over the seas and you will see wonderful things and get a husband who will love you."

What if M. St. Armand should want to take her over the sea? She did not belong to anybody; she knew that now, and at times it gave her a mortifying pain. Some of the ladies had occasionally noticed her and talked with her, but she had a quick consciousness that they did not esteem her of their kind. She liked the lovely surroundings of their lives, the rustle of their gowns, the glitter of the jewels some of them wore, their long, soft white fingers, so different from the stubby hands of the habitans. Hers were slim, with pink nails that looked like a bit of shell, but they were not white. Perhaps there was a little Indian blood that made her so lithe and light, able to climb trees, to swim like a fish, and gave her this great love for the wide out-of-doors.

It was hot one afternoon, and she would not go out anywhere. The chamber window overlooked the garden, where flowers and sweet herbs were growing, and every whiff of wind sent a shower of fragrance within. She had dropped her book and gone to dreaming. Pani sat stringing beads for some embroidery—or perhaps had fallen into a doze.

There was a step and a cordial "bon soir." Jeanne roused at the voice.

"I am glad to find you in, Pani. It is well that you have not much house to keep, for then you could not go out so often."

"No. Be seated, Madame, if it please you."

"Yes. I want a little talk about the child, Pani. Monsieur De Ber has been in consultation with the notary, M. Loisel, and has laid before him a marriage proposal from Pierre. He could see no objections. I did think I would like a little more thrift and household knowledge in my son's wife, but I am convinced he will never fancy anyone else, and he will be well enough fixed to keep a maid, though they are wasteful trollops and not like your own people, Pani. And Jeanne has her dowry. Since she has no mother or aunt it is but right to consult you, and I know you have been friendly to Pierre. It will be a very good marriage for her, and I have come to say we are all agreed, and that the betrothal may take place as soon as she likes."

Jeanne had listened with amazement and curiosity to the first part of the speech and the really pleasant tone of voice. Now she came forward and stood in the doorway, her slim figure erect, her waving hair falling over her beautiful shoulders, her eyes with the darkness of night in them, but the color gone out of her cheeks with the great effort she was making to keep calm.

"Madame De Ber," she began, "I could not help hearing what you said. I thank you for your kindly feelings toward your son's wishes, but before any further steps are taken I want to say that a betrothal is out of the question, and that there can be no plan of marriage between us."

"Jeanne Angelot!" Madame's eyes flashed with yellow lights and her black brows met in a frown.

"I am sorry that Pierre loves me. I told him long ago, before he went away, when we were only children, that I could not be his wife. I tried to evade him when he came back, and to show him how useless his hopes were. But he would not heed. Even if you had liked and approved me, Madame, I might have felt sorrier, but that would not have made me love him."

"And, pray, what is the matter with Pierre? He may not be such a gallant dancing Jack as the young officer, or a marvelous fiddler like M. Loisel's nephew, who I hear has been paying court to you. Mam'selle Jeanne Angelot, you have made yourself the talk of the town, and you may be glad to have a respectable man marry you."

"Oh, if I were the talk of the town I care too much for Pierre to give him such a wife. I would take no man's love when I could not return it. And I do not love Pierre. I think love cannot be made, Madame, for if you try to make it, it turns to hate. I do not love anyone. I do not want to marry!"

"Thou hast not the mark of an old maid, and some day it may fare worse with thee!" the visitor flung out angrily.

Jeanne's face blazed at the taunt. A childish impulse seized her to strike Madame in the very mouth for it. She kept silence for some seconds until the angry blood was a little calmer.

"I trust the good God will keep me safe, Madame," she said tremulously, every pulse still athrob. "I pray to him night and morning."

"But thou dost not go to confession or mass. Such prayers of thine own planning will never be heard. Thou art a wicked girl, an unbeliever. I would have trained thee in the safe way, and cared for thee like a mother. But that is at an end. Now I would not receive thee in my house, if my son lay dying."

"I shall not come. Do not fear, Madame. And I am truly sorry for Pierre when there are so many fine girls who would be glad of a nice husband. I hope he will be happy and get some one you can all love."

Madame was speechless. The soft answer had blunted her weapons. Jeanne turned away, glided into the chamber and the next instant had leaped out of the window. There was a grassy spot in the far corner of the garden, shaded by their neighbor's walnut tree. She flung herself down upon it, and buried her face in the cool grass.

"My poor son! my poor son!" moaned Madame. "She has no heart, that child! She is not human. Pani, it was not a child the squaw dropped in your arms, it was—"

"Hush! hush!" cried Pani, rising and looking fierce as if she might attack Madame. "Do not utter it. She was made a Christian child in the church. She is sweet and good, and if she cannot love a husband, the saints and the holy Mother know why, and will forgive her."

"My poor Pierre! But she is not worth his sorrow. Only he is so obstinate. Last night he declared he would never take a wife while she was single. And to deprive him of happiness! To refuse when I had sacrificed my own feelings and meant to be a mother to her! No, she is not human. I pity you, Pani."

Then Madame swept out of the door with majestic dignity. Pani clasped her arms about her knees and rocked herself to and fro, while the old superstitions and weird legends of her race rushed over her. The mother might have died, but who was the father? There was some strange blood in the child.

"Heaven and the saints and the good God keep watch over her!" she prayed passionately. Then she ran out into the small yard.

"Little one, little one—" her voice was tremulous with fear.

Jeanne sprang up and clasped her arms about Pani's neck. How warm and soft they were. And her cheek was like a rose leaf.

"Pani," between a cry and a laugh, "do lovers keep coming on forever? There was Louis Marsac and Pierre, and Martin Lavosse angry with Rose, and"—her cheek was hot now against Pani's cool one, throbbing with girlish confusion.

"Because thou art beautiful, child."

"Then I wish I were ugly. Oh, no, I do not, either." Would M. St. Armand like her so well if she were ugly? "Ah, I do not wonder women become nuns—sometimes. And I am sincerely sorry for Pierre. I suppose the De Bers will never speak to me again. Pani, it is growing cooler now, let us go out in the woods. I feel stifled. I wish we had a wigwam up in the forest. Come."

Pani put away her work.

"Let us go the other way, the chemin du ronde, to the gate. Rose may be gossiping with some of the neighbors."

They walked down that way. There was quite a throng at King's wharf. Some new boats had come in. One and another nodded to Jeanne; but just as she was turning a hand touched her arm, too lightly to be the jostle of the throng. She was in no mood for familiarities, and shook it off indignantly.

"Mam'selle Jeanne Angelot," a rather rich voice said in a laughing tone.

She guessed before she even changed the poise of her head. What cruel fate followed her!

"Nay, do not look so fierce! How you have grown, yet I should have known you among a thousand."

"Louis Marsac!" The name seemed wrested from her. She could feel the wrench in her mind.

"Then you have not forgotten me! Mam'selle, I cannot help it—" with a deprecation in his voice that was an apology and begged for condonation. "You were pretty before, but you have grown wonderfully beautiful. You will allow an old friend to say it."

His eyes seemed to devour her, from her dusky head to the finger tips, nay, even to the slim ankles, for skirts were worn short among the ordinary women. Only the quality went in trailing gowns, and held them up carefully in the unpaved ways.

"If you begin to compliment, I shall dismiss you from the list of my acquaintances. It is foolish and ill-bred. And if you go around praising every pretty girl in Le Detroit, you will have no time left for business, Monsieur."

Her face set itself in resolute lines, her voice had a cold scornfulness in it.

"Is this all the welcome you have for me? I have been in but an hour, and busy enough with these dolts in unloading. Then I meant to hunt you up instead of going to sup with Monsieur Meldrum, with whom I have much business, but an old friend should have the first consideration."

"I am not sure, Monsieur, that I care for friends. I have found them troublesome. And you would have had your effort for nothing. Pani and I would not be at home."

"You are the same briery rose, Jeanne," with an amused laugh. "So sweet a one does well to be set in thorns. Still, I shall claim an old friend's privilege. And I have no end of stirring adventures for your ear. I have come now from Quebec, where the ladies are most gracious and charming."

"Then I shall not please you, Monsieur," curtly. "Come, Pani," linking her arm in that of the woman, "let us get out of the crowd," and she nodded a careless adieu.

They turned into a sort of lane that led below the palisades.

"Pani," excitedly, "let us go out on the river. There will be an early moon, and we shall not mind so that we get in by nine. And we need not stop to gossip with people, canoes are not so friendly as woodland paths."

Her laugh was forced and a little bitter.

Pani had hardly recovered from her surprise. She nodded assent with a feeling that she had been stricken dumb. It was not altogether Louis Marsac's appearance, he had been expected last summer and had not come. She had almost forgotten about him. It was Jeanne's mood that perplexed her so. The two had been such friends and playmates, one might say, only a few years ago. He had been a slave to her pretty whims then. She had decorated his head with feathers and called him Chief of Detroit, or she had twined daisy wreaths and sweet grasses about his neck. He had bent down the young saplings that she might ride on them, a graceful, fearless child. They had run races,—she was fleet as the wind and he could not always catch her. He had gathered the first ripe wild strawberries, not bigger than the end of her little finger, but, oh, how luscious! She had quarreled with him, too, she had struck him with a feathery hemlock branch, until he begged her pardon for some fancied fault, and nothing had suited him better than to loll under the great oak tree, listening to Pani's story and all the mysterious suppositions of her coming. Then he told wild legends of the various tribes, talked in a strange, guttural accent, danced a war dance, and was almost as much her attendant as Pani.

But the three years had allowed him to escape from the woman's memory, as any event they might expect again in their lives. Hugh de Marsac had turned into something of an explorer, beside his profitable connection with the fur company. The copper mines on Lake Superior had stirred up a great interest, and plans were being made to work them to a better advantage than the Indians had ever done. Fortunes were the dream of mankind even then; though this was destined to end in disappointment.

Jeanne chose her canoe and they pushed out. She was in no haste, and few people were going down the river, not many anywhere except on business. The numerous holy days of the Church, which gave to religion an hour or two in the morning and devoted to pleasure the rest of the day, set the river in a whirl of gayety. Ordinary days were for work.