ld for the present."

"I shall soon be jealous, _ma mie_, but it is a pleasure to see a bright
young thing about that can talk with her eyes and not chatter shrilly.
_Mon dieu!_ what voices most of the wives have, and they are
transmitting them to their children. Yes; we will start at noon, and be
gone two days. Destournier has some messages to deliver. Put on thy
plainest frock, we are not in sunny France now."

She had learned that and only dressed up now and then for her husband's
sake, or to please the child. And she had made her some pretty frocks
out of petticoats quite too fine for wear here.

Rose was overjoyed. Wanamee was to accompany them. When they were ready
they were piloted down to the wharf by Monsieur, and there was M. Ralph
to welcome them. The river was brisk with boats and canoes and shallops.
The sun glistened on the naked backs of Indian rowers bending with every
stroke of the paddles to a rhythmic sort of sound, that later on grew to
be regular songs. There were squaws handling canoes with grace and
dexterity. One would have considered Quebec a great _entrepot_.

But the river with its beautiful bank, its groves of trees that had not
yet been despoiled, its frowning rocks glinting in the sunshine, its
wild flowers, its swift dazzle of birds, its great flocks of geese,
snowy white, in the little coves that uttered shrill cries and then
huddled together, the islands that reared grassy heads a moment and were
submerged as the current swept over them.

"Why are they not drowned?" asked Rose. "Or can they swim like the
little Indian boys?"

M. Giffard laughed--he often did at her quaint questions.

"They are like the trees; they have taken root ever so far down, and the
tide cannot sweep them away."

"And is Quebec rooted that way? Do the rocks hold fast? And--all the
places, even France?"

"They have staunch foundations. The good God has anchored them fast."

A puzzled look wavered over her face. "Monsieur, it is said the great
world is round. Why does not the water spill out as it turns? It would
fall out of a pail."

"Ah, child, that once puzzled wiser heads than thine. And years must
pass over thy head before thou canst understand."

"When I am as big as miladi?"

"I am afraid I do not quite understand myself, though I learned it in
the convent, I am quite sure. And I could not see why we did not fall
off. Some of the good nuns still believed the world was flat," and
miladi laughed.