their wine and cigars Mam'selle took Jeanne to the
pretty sitting room that she had once visited with such awe. It was
odorous with the evening dew on the vines outside and the peculiar
fragrance of sweetbrier.

"What an odd thing that you should have been carried off by Indians and
taken to your father's house!" she began. "And this double
marriage--though the Church had annulled your mother's. We have heard of
the White Chief, but no one could have guessed you were his child. It is
said--your mother desires you--" Mam'selle hesitated as if afraid to
trench on secret matters, and not sure of the conclusion.

"She wishes me to go into the convent. But I am not like Berthe Campeau.
I should fret and be miserable like a wild beast in a cage. If she were
ill and needed a nurse and affection, I should be drawn to her. And
then, I am not of the same faith."

"But--a mother--"

"O Mam'selle, she doesn't seem like my mother. My father kissed me and
held me in his arms at once and my whole heart went out to him. I feel
strange and far away from her, and she thinks human love a snare to draw
the soul from God. O Mam'selle, when he has made the world so beautiful
with all the varying seasons, the singing birds and the blooms and the
leaping waters that take on wonderful tints at sunrise and sunset, how
could one be shut away from it all? There is so much to give thanks for
in the wide, splendid world. It must be better to give them with a free,
grateful heart."

"I have had some sorrow, and once I looked toward convent peace with
secret longing. But my mother and father said, 'Wait, we both shall need
thee as we grow older.' There is much good to be done outside. And one
can pray as I have learned. I cannot think human ties are easily to be
cast aside when God's own hand has welded them."

"And she sent me to my father. I feel that I belong to him;" Jeanne
declared, proudly.

"He is a man to be fond of, so gracious and noble. And his island home
is said to be most beautiful."

Jeanne gave an eloquent description of it and the two handsome boys with
their splendid mother. Mam'selle wondered that there was no jealousy in
her young heart. What a charming character she had! Why had not she
taken her up as well, instead of feeling that M. St. Armand's interest
was much misplaced? She might have won this sweet child's affection that
had been lavished upon an old Indian woman. At times she had hungered
for love. Her sister wa