rected her errors and
explained to her her mistakes. She herself thought them too trifling for
their notice; it was only a way she had of amusing herself. Even Rast,
her playmate, found it out by chance, coming upon her among the cedars
one day when she was Ophelia, and overhearing her speak several lines
before she saw him; he immediately constituted himself an audience of
one, with, however, the peremptory manners of a throng, and demanded to
hear all she knew. Poor Anne! the great plays of the world had been her
fairy tales; she knew no others. She went through her personations
timidly, the wild forest her background, the open air and blue Straits
her scenery. The audience found fault, but, on the whole, enjoyed the
performance, and demanded frequent repetitions. After a while Miss Lois
was admitted into the secret, and disapproved, and was curious, and
listened, and shook her head, but ended by liking the portraitures,
which were in truth as fantastic as phantasmagoria. Miss Lois had never
seen a play or read a novel in her life. For some time the forest
continued Anne's theatre, and more than once Miss Lois had taken
afternoon walks, for which her conscience troubled her: she could not
decide whether it was right or wrong. But winter came, and gradually it
grew into a habit that Anne should recite at the church-house now and
then, the Indian servant who happened to be at that time the occupant of
the kitchen being sent carefully away for the evening, in order that her
eye should not be guiltily glued to the key-hole during the exciting
visits of Ophelia and Juliet. Anne was always reluctant to give these
recitations now that she had an audience. "Out in the woods," she said,
"I had only the trees and the silence. I never thought of myself at
all."

"But Miss Lois and I are as handsome as trees; and as to silence, we
never say a word," replied Rast. "Come, Annet, you know you like it."

"Yes; in--in one way I do."

"Then let us take that way," said Rast.

CHAPTER IV.

--"Sounding names as any on the page of history--Lake Winnipeg,
Hudson Bay, Ottaway, and portages innumerable; Chipeways, Gens de
Terre, Les Pilleurs, the Weepers, and the like. An immense, shaggy,
but sincere country, adorned with chains of lakes and rivers,
covered with snows, with hemlocks and fir-trees. There is a
naturalness in this traveller, and an unpretendingness, as in a
Canadian winter, where li