, replacing the spoon in the saucer, and leaning back against the
cushions with half-closed eyes.

"Will you have some more, then?" said Anne.

Tita shook her head, and waved away her sister impatiently.

"She is as thorough an epicure as I am," said the priest, smiling; "it
takes away from the poetry of a dish to be asked to eat more."

It was now time to start homeward, and Pere Michaux's sledge made its
appearance, coming from a little islet near by. Old Pierre would not
have dogs upon his shores; yet he went over to the other island himself
every morning, at the expense of much time and trouble, to see that the
half-breed in charge had not neglected them. The result was that Pere
Michaux's dogs were known as far as they could be seen by their fat
sides, the only rotundities in dog-flesh within a circle of five hundred
miles. Pere Michaux wished to take Tita with him in his sledge, in order
that Anne might ride also; but the young girl declined with a smile,
saying that she liked the walk.

"Do not wait for us, sir," she said; "your dogs can go much faster than
ours."

But the priest preferred to make the journey in company with them; and
they all started together from the house door, where Pierre stood in his
red skull-cap, bowing farewell. The sledges glided down the little slope
to the beach, and shot out on the white ice, the two drivers keeping by
the side of their teams, the boys racing along in advance, and Anne
walking with her quick elastic step by the side of Pere Michaux's
conveyance, talking to him with the animation which always came to her
in the open air. The color mounted in her cheeks; with her head held
erect she seemed to breathe with delight, and to rejoice in the clear
sky, the cold, the crisp sound of her own footsteps, while her eyes
followed the cliffs of the shore-line crowned with evergreens--savage
cliffs which the short summer could hardly soften. The sun sank toward
the west, the air grew colder; Tita drew the furs over her head, and
vanished from sight, riding along in her nest half asleep, listening to
the bells. The boys still ran and pranced, but more, perhaps, from a
sense of honor than from natural hilarity. They were more exact in
taking their turns in the sledge now, and more slow in coming out from
the furs upon call; still, they kept on. As the track turned little by
little, following the line of the shore, they came nearer to the
mail-train advancing rapidly from the east