red Pani, whose range of knowledge was only wide
enough to know that many tribes were at bitter enmity with each other.

"Do you want to work in the garden? There are weeds enough to keep you
busy," said Pierre presently.

"No," returned Pani stoutly.

"And Pani belongs to me," declared Rose.

Pierre turned to look at the girl. Her beauty stirred him strangely.
Sometimes, when his father sang the old songs of home, the same quiver
went through every pulse.

"I'm sorry," he said, in a gentler tone. "Now I must go back to my
chair."

"Is it to be a chair?"

"I can't weave the grasses just right, though some one showed me, only I
was thinking of other things."

"Let's see." Pani was a little mollified.

They went back to the boy's work.

"I'm only making a little one for Marie. Then I shall try a larger one.
There are two in the room."

Yes, Rose knew them well. The place was about the same, with the great
bunk on one side and the smaller one on the other. Mere Dubray's bright
blankets were gone, with the pictures of the Virgin, and the high
candlestick, that was alight on certain days. Little mattresses filled
with dried grass were piled on top of the bunk. It looked like, and yet
unlike. Rose was glad she did not live here.

Pani inspected the boy's work.

"Oh, you haven't it right. You must put pegs in here, then you can pull
it up. And this is the way you go."

Pani's deft fingers went in and out like a bit of machinery. It was
forest lore, and he was at home in it.

"You make it beautiful," exclaimed Pierre. "Oh, go slower, so I can
understand."

Pani smiled with the praise and put in a word of explanation now and
then. The boys were fast becoming friends.

"Maman," Pierre cried, "come and see how fine the boy does it. If he
would come and live with us!"

"I might come a little while and look after the garden. And I could
catch fish and I know the best places for berries, and the grapes will
soon be ripening. And the plums. I can shoot birds with an arrow. But I
belong to mam'selle."

"If she will let you come now and then," wistfully.

"Yes, I might," with an air of condescension.

"Thou art a pretty little lady," was Mere Gaudrion's parting benison to
the little girl, and Rose smiled. "Come again often."

When they were out of the narrow passageway she said, "Now let us have a
race. I am glad Mere Dubray is there no longer, are you not? But what a
funny pile of children!"

They had th