promised Father Rameau. There
will be plenty of time to run and play besides."

Jeanne Angelot looked steadily down on the ground. A caterpillar was
dragging its length along and she touched it with her foot.

"It was once a butterfly. It will spin itself up in a web and hang
somewhere all winter, and in the spring turn to a butterfly again."

"That ugly thing!" in intense surprise.

"And how the trees drop their leaves in the autumn and their buds are
done up in a brown sheath until the spring sunshine softens it and the
tiny green leaf comes out, and why the birds go to warmer countries,
because they cannot stand snow and sleet, and return again; why the bee
shuts himself up in the hollow tree and sleeps, and a hundred beautiful
things. And when I come back we will talk them over."

"O Monsieur!" Her rose lips quivered and the dimple in her chin deepened
as she drew a long breath that stirred every pulse of her being.

He had touched the right chord, awakened a new life within her. There
was a struggle, yet he liked her the better for not giving up her
individuality in a moment.

"Monsieur," she exclaimed with a new humility, "I will try--indeed I
will."

"That is a brave girl. M. Loisel will attend to the matter. And you will
be very happy after a while. It will come hard at first, but you must be
courageous and persevering. And now I must say good-by for a long while.
Pani I know will take excellent care of you."

He rose and shook hands with the woman, whose eyes were full of love for
the child of her adoption. Then he took both of Jeanne's little brown
hands in his and pressed them warmly.

She watched him as he threaded his way through the narrow street and
turned the corner. Then she rushed into the house and threw herself on
the small pallet, sobbing as if her heart would break. No one for whom
she cared had ever gone out of her life before. With Pani there was
complete ownership, but Monsieur St. Armand was a new experience.
Neither had she really loved her playmates, she had found them all so
different from herself. Next to Pani stood Wenonah and the grave
brown-faced babies who tumbled about the floor when they were not
fastened to their birch bark canoe cradle with a flat end balancing it
against the wall. She sometimes kissed them, they were so quaint and
funny.

"_Ma mie, ma mie_, let me take thee to my bosom," Pani pleaded. "He will
return again as he said, for he keeps his word. And thou wi