the great sitting-room beside the
fire, his foot and ankle bandaged, and at ease, his face alight with all
that had brought him there. And once again the Indian mother with a sure
instinct knew why he had come, and saw that now her girl would have a
white woman's home, and, for her man, one of the race like her father's
race, white and conquering.

"I'm sorry to give trouble," Julien said, laughing--he had a trick
of laughing lightly; "but I'll be able to get back to the Portage
to-morrow."

To this the Indian mother said, however: "To please yourself is a great
thing, but to please others is better; and so you will stay here till
you can walk back to the Portage, M'sieu' Julien."

"Well, I've never been so comfortable," he said--"never so--happy. If
you don't mind the trouble!" The Indian woman nodded pleasantly, and
found an excuse to leave the room. But before she went she contrived
to place near his elbow one of the scraps of paper on which Pauline had
drawn his face, with that of Manette. It brought a light of hope and
happiness into his eyes, and he thrust the paper under the fur robes of
the couch.

"What are you doing with your life?" Pauline asked him, as his eyes
sought hers a few moments later.

"Oh, I have a big piece of work before me," he answered eagerly, "a
great chance--to build a bridge over the St. Lawrence, and I'm only
thirty! I've got my start. Then, I've made over the old Seigneury my
father left me, and I'm going to live in it. It will be a fine place,
when I've done with it--comfortable and big, with old oak timbers and
walls, and deep fireplaces, and carvings done in the time of Louis
Quinze, and dark red velvet curtains for the drawingroom, and skins and
furs. Yes, I must have skins and furs like these here." He smoothed the
skins with his hand.

"Manette, she will live with you?" Pauline asked. "Oh no, her husband
wouldn't like that. You see, Manette is to be married. She told me to
tell you all about it."

He told her all there was to tell of Manette's courtship, and added that
the wedding would take place in the spring.

"Manette wanted it when the leaves first flourish and the birds come
back," he said gaily; "and so she's not going to live with me at the
Seigneury, you see. No, there it is, as fine a house, good enough for a
prince, and I shall be there alone, unless--"

His eyes met hers, and he caught the light that was in them, before the
eyelids drooped over them and she t