cate fretwork, I
could not resist bringing away some of its color.

"Did you get that for me?" called Annabel. I mounted the steps to give
it to her, and she said, "Thank you, Lazarre Williams. Every day you
learn some pretty new trick. Doctor Chantry has not brought me anything
from the woods in a long while."

Doctor Chantry stirred his gouty feet and looked hopelessly out at the
landscape.

"Sit here by your dearest Annabel," said Mademoiselle de Chaumont.

Her governess breathed the usual sigh of disgust.

I sat by my dearest Annabel, anxious to light my candle and open my
books. She shook the frizzes around her cheeks and buried her hands
under the scarlet branch in her lap.

"Do you know, Lazarre Williams, I have to leave you?"

I said I was sorry to hear it.

"Yes, I have to go back to my convent, and drag poor Miss Chantry with
me, though she is a heretic and bates the forms of our religion. But she
has to submit, and so do I, because my father will have nobody but an
English governess."

"Mademoiselle," spoke Miss Chantry, "I would suggest that you sit on a
chair by yourself."

"What, on one of those little crowded chairs?" said Annabel.

She reached out her sly hand for mine and drew it under cover of the
sumach branch.

"I have been thinking about your rank a great deal, Lazarre Williams,
and wondering what it is."

"If you thought more about your own it would be better," said Miss
Chantry.

"We are Americans here," said Annabel. "All are equal, and some are
free. I am only equal. Must your dearest Annabel obey you about the
chair, Miss Chantry?"

"I said I would suggest that you sit on a chair by yourself."

"I will, dear. You know I always follow your suggestions."

I felt the hand that held mine tighten its grip in a despairing squeeze.
Annabel suddenly raised the branch high above her head with both arms,
and displayed Doctor Chantry's hand and mine clasped tenderly in her
lap. She laughed until even Miss Chantry was infected, and the doctor
tittered and wiped his eyes.

"Watch your brother, Miss Chantry--don't watch me! You thought he was
squeezing my hand--and he thought so too! Lazarre Williams is just out
of the woods and doesn't know any better. But Doctor Chantry--he is
older than my father!"

"We wished to oblige you, mademoiselle," I said. But the poor English
gentleman tittered on in helpless admiration. He told me privately--"I
never saw another girl like her. So full o