have pleasant society, where the sun cannot scorch these fair
features, nor toil roughen these little hands. You will see that it will
yet come to pass."

"Add: with the help of God!" said the grandmother. "Every enterprise
must begin with God's favor, then it will end with it. Do you still
pray, William?"

The young man sighed.

"You once taught me many prayers, grandmother."

"Do not forget them. _We_ pray for you every day."

"Yes indeed," said the younger sister. "Grandmother reads from the
prayer-book, and then we repeat a long prayer, in which we name all the
good things we entreat God to grant you and all the evil ones from
which we beseech him to guard you: storms, sickness, shipwreck, hunger,
thirst, sharks, savages, and above all, Robert Barthelemy."

The young man gazed at her with a smile. "And why from Robert
Barthelemy?" he asked.

"Because he is a wicked pirate, whom no one can resist, who is in league
with the devil, and who either burns all whom he captures over a slow
fire or else casts them into the sea."

"That is not true, Barthelemy never tortures any one."

"Oh, we remember him, too, in our daily prayer."

"Do you?"

"Yes indeed. Every day, crossing ourselves three times, we entreat God
to sink to the bottom of the sea the horrible monster, whom we hold in
such fear for your sake."

"So you all remember Robert Barthelemy at the end of your prayers?"
asked the youth, embracing the girls in turn as they hung weeping and
laughing around his neck.

"Julietta!" said one, "sing William the song you composed about him and
the pirates."

"You have composed a song about me and the pirates?" asked the youth.

Julietta flushed crimson and after withdrawing shyly from his embrace
she sang in a sweet, tremulous voice:

Far, far away the white dove flies,
In fierce pursuit the black hawk hies,
The dove is my lover so dear,
The hawk is the pirate I fear.
Oh, God, stretch forth Thy mighty arm
My absent lover shield from harm.
Wing the dove's flight,
The black hawk smite;
Back to its nest let the white dove flee,
Whelm the black hawk beneath the sea.

"Do you understand?" asked the younger sister. "You are the dove, and
the hawk is--Robert Barthelemy."

The young man showered kisses upon the three beautiful girls, not one of
whom suspected that the dear brother, the still dearer lover, whom they
embraced was--Robert Barthelemy himself.

Yet it w