illy, bristling when he approached like a hedge-hog; and
with her frank eyes meeting his, he found it impossible to speak to
Anne. But he told Pere Michaux the true state of his patient, and asked
him to break the tidings to the family.

"He can not live long," he said.

"Is it so?" said Pere Michaux. "God's will be done. Poor Anne!"

"An odd lot of children he has in that ramshackle old house of his,"
continued the surgeon. "Two sets, I should say."

"Yes; the second wife was a French girl."

"With Indian blood?"

"Yes."

"I thought so. Who is to have charge of them? The boys will take to the
woods, I suppose, but that little Tita is an odd specimen. She would
make quite a sensation in New York a few years later."

"May she never reach there!" said the old priest, fervently.

"Well, perhaps you are right. But who is to have the child?"

"Her sister will take charge of her."

"Miss Anne? Yes, she will do her best, of course; she is a fine, frank
young Saxon. But I doubt if she understands that elfish little
creature."

"She understands her better than we do," said the priest, with some
heat.

"Ah? You know best, of course; I speak merely as an outsider," answered
the new surgeon, going off about his business.

[Illustration: "ALARMED, HE BENT OVER HER."]

Pere Michaux decided that he would tell Anne herself. He went to the
house for the purpose, and called her out on the old piazza. But when
she stood before him, her violet eyes meeting his without a suspicion of
the tidings he brought, his heart failed him suddenly. He comprehended
for the first time what it would be to her, and, making some chance
inquiry, he asked to see Miss Lois, and turned away. Anne went in, and
Miss Lois came out. The contrast between the priest and the New England
woman was more marked than usual as they stood there facing each
other on the old piazza, he less composed than he ordinarily was on
account of what he had to tell. But it never occurred to him for a
moment that Miss Lois would falter. Why should she? He told her. She
sank down at his feet as though she had fallen there and died.

Alarmed, he bent over her, and in the twilight saw that she was not
dead; her features were working strangely; her hands were clinched over
her breast; her faded eyes stared at him behind the spectacles as though
he were miles away. He tried to raise her. She struck at him almost
fiercely. "Let me alone," she said, in a muffled voice. The