look for him, I'll be bound! I
will tell you something by and by, Jean, if you will come in and eat
your dinner; I have something you like."

"What is it, Babet?" Jean was, after all, more curious about his dinner
than about the fair lady.

"Oh, something you like--that is a wife's secret: keep the stomach of
a man warm, and his heart will never grow cold. What say you to fried
eels?"

"Bravo!" cried the gay old boatman, as he sang,

"'Ah! ah! ah! frit a l'huile,
Frit au beurre et a l'ognon!'"

and the jolly couple danced into their little cottage--no king and queen
in Christendom half so happy as they.

CHAPTER X. AMELIE DE REPENTIGNY.

The town house of the Lady de Tilly stood on the upper part of the Place
d'Armes, a broad, roughly-paved square. The Chateau of St. Louis, with
its massive buildings and high, peaked roofs, filled one side of the
square. On the other side, embowered in ancient trees that had escaped
the axe of Champlain's hardy followers, stood the old-fashioned
Monastery of the Recollets, with its high belfry and broad shady porch,
where the monks in gray gowns and sandals sat in summer, reading their
breviaries or exchanging salutations with the passers-by, who always had
a kind greeting for the brothers of St. Francis.

The mansion of the Lady de Tilly was of stone, spacious and ornate, as
became the rank and wealth of the Seigneurs de Tilly. It overlooked the
Place d'Armes and the noble gardens of the Chateau of St. Louis, with
a magnificent sweep of the St. Lawrence, flowing majestically under the
fortress-crowned cape and the high, wooded hills of Lauzon, the farther
side of the river closing the view.

In the recess of an ornate mullioned window, half concealed by the rich,
heavy curtains of a noble room, Amelie de Repentigny sat alone--very
quiet in look and demeanor, but no little agitated in mind, as might
be noticed in the nervous contact of her hands, which lay in her lap
clasping each other very hard, as if trying to steady her thoughts.

Her aunt was receiving some lady visitors in the great drawing-room. The
hum of loud feminine voices reached the ear of Amelie, but she paid no
attention, so absorbed was she in the new and strange thoughts that
had stirred in her mind since morning, when she had learned from the
Chevalier La Corne of the return to New France of Pierre Philibert. The
news had surprised her to a degree she could not account for. Her first