saw her placed in a beautiful box of white wood, and my
grandmother led me up to her to kiss her and say good-by. She was very
white and very stiff, and every evening my aunt made me pray God that
she might go to him in Heaven and be warm. Do you think that she is
there now?"

"I hope so, my child; but you must always pray. It shows your mother
that you love her."

"I am going to say my prayers," answered the boy. "I forgot them
to-night. But I can't say them all alone, for I always forget something.
Little Marie must help me."

"Yes, my Pierre, I will help you," said the young girl. "Come and kneel
down in my lap."

The child knelt down on the girl's skirt. He clasped his little hands
and began to say his prayers, at first with great care and earnestness,
for he knew the beginning very well, then slowly and with more
hesitation, and finally repeating word by word after Marie, when he came
to that place in his prayer where sleep overtook him so invariably that
he had never been able to learn the end. This time again the effort of
close attention and the monotony of his own accent produced their wonted
effect. He pronounced the last syllables with great difficulty, and only
after they were thrice repeated.

His head grew heavy and fell on Marie's breast; his hands unclasped,
divided, and fell open on his knees. By the light of the camp-fire,
Germain watched his little darling hushed at the heart of the young
girl, who, as she held him in her arms and warmed his fair hair with
her sweet breath, had herself fallen into a holy reverie, and prayed in
quiet for the soul of Catherine.

Germain was touched. He tried to express to little Marie the grateful
esteem which he felt for her, but he could find no fitting words.

He approached her to kiss his son, whom she held close to her breast,
and he could scarcely raise his lips from little Pierre's brow.

"You kiss too hard," said Marie, gently pushing away the husbandman's
head. "You will wake him. Let me put him back to bed, for the boy has
left us already for dreams of paradise."

The child allowed Marie to lay him down, but feeling the goatskin on the
saddle, he asked if he were on the gray. Then opening his big blue eyes,
and keeping them fixed on the branches for a minute, he seemed to be
dreaming, wide-awake as he was, or to be struck with an idea which had
slipped his mind during the daytime, and only assumed a distinct form at
the approach of sleep.

"Little