dren, and under my care. When they are older they can choose for
themselves."

"To whom did you make that promise, Anne Douglas?"

"To Pere Michaux."

"And you call yourself a Protestant!"

"Yes; but I hope to keep a promise too, dear Miss Lois."

"Why was it ever made?"

"Pere Michaux required it, and--father allowed it."

Miss Lois rubbed her forehead, settled her spectacles with her first and
third fingers, shook her head briskly once or twice to see if they were
firmly in place, and then went on with her knitting. What William
Douglas allowed, how could she disallow?

Rast, standing by Anne's side putting on his fur gloves, showed no
disposition to yield.

"Please do not come, Rast," said the girl again, laying her hand on his
arm.

"I shall go to take care of you."

"It is not necessary; we have old Antoine and his dogs, and the boys are
to have a sled of their own. We shall be at home before dark, I think,
and if not, the moon to-night is full."

"But I shall go," said Rast.

"Nonsense!" said Miss Lois. "Of course you will not go; Anne is right.
You romp and make mischief with those children always. Behave now, and
you shall come back this evening, and Anne shall come too, and we will
have apples and nuts and gingerbread, and Anne shall recite."

"Will you, Annet? I will yield if you promise."

"If I must, I must," said Anne, reluctantly.

"Go, then, proud maid; speed upon your errand. And in the mean time,
Miss Lois, something fragrant and spicy in the way of a reward _now_
would not come amiss, and then some music."

Among the possessions which Miss Lois had inherited from her aunt was a
small piano. The elder Miss Hinsdale, sent into the world with an almost
Italian love of music, found herself unable to repress it even in cold
New England; turning it, therefore, into the channel of the few stunted
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs of the day, she indulged it in a
cramped fashion, like a full-flowing stream shut off and made to turn a
mill. When the missionary spirit seized her in its fiery whirlwind, she
bargained with it mentally that her piano should be included; she
represented to the doubting elder that it would be an instrument of
great power among the savages, and that even David himself accompanied
the psalms with a well-stringed harp. The elder still doubted; he liked
a tuning-fork; and besides, the money which Miss Priscilla would pay for
the transportation of "the instrument"