-up people. And
M'sieu told her yesterday--I heard them talking--that you were to be a
child to them, that they would both love you. Miladi has been irritable,
and not so gay as she used, but she is better now, and will soon be her
olden self. She was very nice and cheerful this morning, and laughed
with the joy of other days. Oh, child, do not disturb it by any
tempers."

Wanamee's eyes were soft and entreating.

"Oh, you need not fear," the child exclaimed, proudly. "Now I will go."

She tapped at miladi's door, and a very sweet voice said--"Come, little
stranger."

She opened it. Miladi was sitting by the small casement window, in one
of her pretty silken gowns, long laid by. There was a dainty rose flush
on her cheek, but the hand she held out was much thinner than of yore,
when in the place of knuckles there were dimples.

"Where have you been all these days when I have not seen you, little
maid? Come here and kiss me, and wish me joy, as they do in old France.
For I am going to take your favorite as a husband, and you are to be our
little daughter."

Rose lifted up her face. The kiss was on her forehead.

"Now, kiss me," and she touched the small shoulder with something like a
shake, as she offered her cheek.

It was a cold little kiss from lips that hardly moved. Miladi laughed
with a pretty, amused ripple.

"In good sooth," she said merrily, "some lover will teach you to kiss
presently. Thou art growing very pretty, Rose, and when some of the
gallants come over from Paris, they will esteem the foundling of Quebec
the heroine of romance."

The child did not flush under the compliment, or the sting, but glanced
down on the floor.

"Come, thou hast not wished me joy."

"Madame, as I have not been to France I do not know how they wish joy."

"Oh, you formal little child!" laughing gayly. "Do you not know what it
is to be happy? Why, you used to be as merry as the birds in singing
time."

"I can still be merry with the birds."

"But you must be merry for M. Destournier. He wishes you to be happy,
and has asked me to be a mother to you. Why, I fell in love with you
long ago, when you were so ill. And surely you have not forgotten when I
found you on the gallery, in a dead faint. You were grateful for
everything then."

Had she loved miladi so much? Why did she not love her now? Why was her
heart so cold? like lead in her bosom.

"I am grateful for everything."

"Then say you are glad I am goin