ciously.

"She has a story and a mystery that no one has fathomed. The Sieur made
some inquiries. A woman of the better class who came over with some
emigrants brought her, and was supposed to be her mother. But some
secret lay heavy on her mind, it seemed, and when she was dying she
confessed that the child was not hers, but she had no time for
explanations. The husband brought her here and has gone to one of the
fur stations. His disappointment was so intense he gave up the child.
And so--her name is neither Arlac nor Dubray. We shall have to
rechristen her."

"What a curious romance! If one knew what town she came from. Oh, my
little one, will you let me be your friend? I had a little golden-haired
girl who died when she was but four, and no children have come since to
gladden my heart."

Madame Giffard bent over and took the small hand, noting the taper
fingers and slender wrist that seemed to indicate good birth. She
pressed it to her lips. Rose looked up trustfully and smiled.

"I like you," she said, with frank earnestness.

"Then I shall come to see you often. This is such a queer place with no
ready-made houses and really nothing but log huts or those made of rough
slabs. I wonder now how I had the courage to come. But I could not be
separated from my dear husband. And when he makes his fortune we shall
go back to our dearly beloved France."

The child smiled. The story had no embarrassment for her--Catherine had
brought her from France and she had never called her mother until on
shipboard. Back of it was vague and misty, though Catherine was in it
all. But this beautiful woman with her soft voice, different from
anything she had ever heard--why, she liked her already almost as much
as M'sieu Ralph.

"And you have been ill a long while?"

"It seemed only a day when I first woke up. Then the snow was on the
ground. I was so cold. I wanted to go to sleep on the chimney seat and
Mere would not let me. And now everything is in bloom and the garden is
planted and the sun shines in very gladness. I shall never like winter
again," and she shuddered.

"Are the winters so dreadful?" she inquired of Destournier.

"I never knew anything like it. I can't understand why the Sieur de
Champlain should want to found a city here when the country south is so
much more congenial. Although this is the key to the North, as he says.
And there is a north to the continent over there."

"You think there are fortunes to b