art that is all the world to Francette!
Why should there be happiness everywhere but here?"

With a gesture pathetically dramatic the little maid threw her hands
across her heaving breast and gazed at McElroy with big eyes, starry in
the dusk.

Her emotion was genuine he could not help but see, even through his
astonishment, and he stared at her with awaking sympathy.

"Is there some one who is so much to you, little one?" he asked. "I
thought there wasn't a youth in the post--no, nor in any other this side
the Red River-who did not pay homage to France Moline's little daughter.
Who is of such poor taste? Tell me, and what I can do I will do to
remedy the evil."

He was smiling at the little maid's pretty daring in coming straight to
the very head of De Seviere with her trouble, and he reached out a hand
to draw her down on the step beside him. There was never a woman in
distress who did not pull at the strings of his heart, and he longed to
soothe her, even while he smiled to himself at her childishness.

But Francette was not so childish, and he was one day to marvel at her
artless skill.

At the touch of his hand she came down, not upon the step beside him as
he meant, but upon her knees before him, with her two little hands upon
his knees and her face of elfin beauty upheld to him in the starlight.

"Oh, M'sieu, there is one who is so much,--oui, even more than all the
world, more than life itself,--more than heaven or hell, for whose sake
I would die a thousand deaths! One at whose feet I worship, scorning all
those youths of the settlement and the posts. See, M'sieu," she leaned
forward so close that the fragrance of her curls blew into the man's
nostrils and he could see that the little face was pale with a passion
that caused him wonder; "see! Today came one from the forest bringing
love's message to that tall woman of Grand Portage,--the little red
flower in the birchbark case. It spoke its tale and she knew,"--subtle
Francette!--"she knew its meaning by the eye of love itself. So would I,
who have no words and am a woman, send my message by a flower."

The hands on the factor's knees were trembling with a rigour that shook
the whole small form before him.

"See, M'sieu!" she cried, with the sudden sound of tears in the low
voice; "read the heart of the little Francette!"

She took from her bosom a fragile object and laid it in his palm, then
clasped her hands over her face and bowed until the little