e wondered the next morning. She slept soundly at last
and late and found herself alone in the house. She put on her simple
frock and went to the doorway. Ah, what a splendid glowing morning it
was! The sunshine lay in golden masses and fairly gilded the green of
the maize, the waving grasses, the bronze of the trees, and the river
threw up lights and shadows like birds skimming about.

No one was in the garden. The table had been despoiled to the last
crumb. Even the cupboard had been ransacked and all that remained was
some raw fish. She was not hungry and the fragrant air was reviving. It
seemed to speed through every pulse. Why, she suddenly felt strong
again.

She wandered out of the enclosure and climbed the steps, sitting down
now and then and drawing curious breaths that frightened her, they came
so irregularly. There were workmen building additional fortifications
around the post, there were houses going up. It was like a strange
place. She reached the gallery presently and looked over what was
sometime to be the city of Quebec. The long stretch was full of tents
and tepees and throngs of men of every description, it would seem;
Indians, swarthy Spaniards who had roamed half round the world, French
from the jaunty trader, with a certain air of breeding, down to the
rough, unkempt peasant, who had been lured away from his native land
with visions of an easily-made fortune and much liberty in New France,
and convicts who had been given a choice between death and expatriation.
Great stacks of furs still coming in from some quarter, haranguing,
bargaining, shouting, coming to blows, and the interference of soldiers.
Was it so last summer when she sometimes ran out with Pani, though she
had been forbidden to?

It was growing very hot up here. The sun that looked so glorious through
the long stretches of the forest and played about the St. Lawrence as if
in a game of hide-and-seek with the boats, grew merciless. All the air
was full of dancing stars and she was so tired trying to reach out to
them, as if they were a stairway leading up to heaven, so that one need
not be put in the dark, wretched ground. Oh, yes, she could find the
way, and she half rose.

It seemed a long journey in the darkness. Then there was a coolness on
her brow, a soft hand passed over it, and she heard some murmuring,
caressing words. She opened her eyes, she tried to rise.

"Lie still, little one," said the voice that soothed and somehow