happy!" When the mass was over, Hetty waited near the door,
and watched anxiously to see if the priest were the same whom her father
had known so well twenty years before. Yes, it was--no--could this be
Father Antoine? This fat, red-faced, jovial-looking old man? Father
Antoine had been young, slender and fair; but there was no mistaking
the calm and serious hazel eyes. It was Father Antoine, but how changed!

"If I have changed as much as that," thought Hetty, "he'll never believe
I am I; and I dare say I have. Dear me, what a frightful thing is this
old age!"

Hetty had resolved, in the outset, that she would take Father Antoine
into her confidence. She knew the sacredness of secrecy in which Roman
Catholic priests are accustomed to hold all confessions made to them.
She felt that her secret would be too heavy to bear unshared, and that
times might arise when she would need advice or help from one knowing
all the truth.

Early the next morning, she went to Father Antoine's house. The good old
man was at work in his garden. His little cottage was surrounded by beds
which were gay with flowers from June till November. Nothing was left in
bloom now, except asters and chrysanthemums: but there was no flower,
not even his July carnations, in which he took such pride, as in his
chrysanthemums. As he heard the little gate shut, he looked up; saw that
it was a stranger; and came forward to meet her, bearing in his hand
one great wine-colored chrysanthemum blossom, as large as a blush rose:

"Is it to see me, daughter?" he said, with his inalienable old French
courtesy. Father Antoine had come of a race which had noble blood in its
veins. His ancestry had worn swords, and lived at courts, and Antoine
Ladeau never once, in his half century of work in these Canadian
forests, forgot that fact. Hetty looked him full in the face, and
colored scarlet, before she began to speak.

"You do not remember me," she said.

Father Antoine shook his head. "It is that I see so many faces each
year," he replied apologetically, "that it is not possible to remember;"
and he gazed earnestly into Hetty's expressive face.

"It is twenty years since I was here," Hetty continued. She felt a great
longing that Father Antoine should recollect her. It would seem to make
her task easier.

A reminiscence dawned on the priest's mind. "Twenty years?" he said,
"ah, but that is long! we were both young then. Is it--ah, is it
possible that it is the d