fts of cloud around the rugged top of a
mountain at sunrise. I could see that his face was spreading into a
smile of ineffable contentment.

"My faith!" said I, "how can you be so cheerful? Your house is in ashes;
your money is burned up; the voyage to Quebec, the visit to the asylum,
the little orphan--how can you give it all up so easily?"

"Well," he replied, taking the pipe from his mouth, with fingers
curling around the bowl, as if they loved to feel that it was warm once
more--"well, then, it would be more hard, I suppose, to give it up not
easily. And then, for the house, we shall build a new one this fall; the
neighbours will help. And for the voyage to Quebec--without that we
may be happy. And as regards the little orphan, I will tell you
frankly"--here he went back to his seat upon the flat stone, and settled
himself with an air of great comfort beside his partner--"I tell you, in
confidence, Angelique demands that I prepare a particular furniture at
the new house. Yes, it is a cradle; but it is not for an orphan."

IV

It was late in the following summer when I came back again to St.
Gerome. The golden-rods and the asters were all in bloom along the
village street; and as I walked down it the broad golden sunlight of
the short afternoon seemed to glorify the open road and the plain square
houses with a careless, homely rapture of peace. The air was softly
fragrant with the odour of balm of Gilead. A yellow warbler sang from
a little clump of elder-bushes, tinkling out his contented song like a
chime of tiny bells, "Sweet--sweet--sweet--sweeter--sweeter--sweetest!"

There was the new house, a little farther back from the road than the
old one; and in the place where the heap of ashes had lain, a primitive
garden, with marigolds and lupines and zinnias all abloom. And there was
Patrick, sitting on the door-step, smoking his pipe in the cool of the
day. Yes; and there, on a many-coloured counterpane spread beside him,
an infant joy of the house of Mullarkey was sucking her thumb, while her
father was humming the words of an old slumber-song:

Sainte Marguerite,
Veillez ma petite!
Endormez ma p'tite enfant
Jusqu'a l'age de quinze ans!
Quand elle aura quinze ans passe
Il faudra la marier
Avec un p'tit bonhomme
Que viendra de Rome.

"Hola! Patrick," I cried; "good luck to you! Is it a girl or a boy?"

"SALUT! m'sieu'," he answered, jumping up and waving