tello all
alone was lying on the sofa, trying to read, but really considering with
some uneasiness the condition of their affairs, Madame Everaert knocked
at the door.

She brought with her a fresh bunch of flowers just bought in the market,
but she was as usual overflowing with talk.

"It is extremely hot," she said, fanning herself with her pocket
handkerchief, "and I met mademoiselle going out. It is excessively hot."

Mrs. Costello looked uneasy.

"Do you think it is too hot to be out?" she asked.

"No. Perhaps not. Certainly, mademoiselle has gone to the ramparts, and
the walk there is not nearly so hot and fatiguing as down to the beach.
Mademoiselle is very fond of the sea."

"Yes, she enjoys it greatly. It is new to her."

"One day, not long ago, I was coming along the top of the
ramparts,--madame has not been there?"

"No."

"There is a broad space on the top, and it is covered with soft green
turf quite pleasant to sit down upon. Very few people pass, and you can
see a long way out to sea. Well, one day I came along there, because
upon the grass it was pleasanter walking than on the stones in the
street, and I saw Mademoiselle Lucia who was sitting quite quiet,
looking out far away. I came very near, but she never saw me. I thought
I would speak to her just to say how beautiful the day was, and the air
so sweet, when I saw just in time madame, that she was crying. Great
big tears were falling down on her hands, and she never seemed to feel
them even. Mon Dieu, madame! I could hardly keep from crying myself, she
looked so sad; but I went by softly, and she never saw me. Mademoiselle
regrets England very much."

"She has never been in England. She was born in Canada, and that, you
know, is very far away."

"In Canada! Is it possible? Does madame come from Canada?"

"Yes."

"And it is in Canada our good father Paul has suffered so much! Oh, the
terrible country!"

"Why should it be terrible? I have seen Father Paul, and he does not
look as if he had suffered much."

"Not now, Dieu merci. But long ago. Madame, he went to convert the
savages--the Indians."

Mrs. Costello started. Father Paul was a Jesuit priest--an old venerable
man--old enough, as it flashed into her mind, to have been one of the
Moose Island missionaries. Yet such an idea was improbable--there had no
doubt been many other Jesuit missions besides the one where Christian
had been trained.

"Do you know where it was that he w