to restore Le Gardeur to
consciousness,--efforts which seemed to last an age to the despairing
girl,--they at last succeeded, and Le Gardeur was restored to the
arms of his family. Amelie, in a delirium of joy and gratitude, ran to
Philibert, threw her arms round him, and kissed him again and again,
pledging her eternal gratitude to the preserver of her brother, and
vowing that she would pray for him to her life's end.

Soon after that memorable event in her young life, Pierre Philibert was
sent to the great military schools in France to study the art of war
with a view to entering the King's service, while Amelie was placed in
the Convent of the Ursulines to be perfected in all the knowledge and
accomplishments of a lady of highest rank in the Colony.

Despite the cold shade of a cloister, where the idea of a lover is
forbidden to enter, the image of Pierre Philibert did intrude, and
became inseparable from the recollection of her brother in the mind
of Amelie. He mingled as the fairy prince in the day-dreams and bright
imaginings of the young, poetic girl. She had vowed to pray for him to
her life's end, and in pursuance of her vow added a golden bead to
her chaplet to remind her of her duty in praying for the safety and
happiness of Pierre Philibert.

But in the quiet life of the cloister, Amelie heard little of the storms
of war upon the frontier and down in the far valleys of Acadia. She had
not followed the career of Pierre from the military school to the camp
and the battlefield, nor knew of his rapid promotion, as one of the
ablest officers in the King's service, to a high command in his native
Colony.

Her surprise, therefore, was extreme when she learned that the boy
companion of her brother and herself was no other than the renowned
Colonel Philibert, Aide-de-Camp of His Excellency the Governor-General.

There was no cause for shame in it; but her heart was suddenly
illuminated by a flash of introspection. She became painfully conscious
how much Pierre Philibert had occupied her thoughts for years, and now
all at once she knew he was a man, and a great and noble one. She was
thoroughly perplexed and half angry. She questioned herself sharply, as
if running thorns into her flesh, to inquire whether she had failed in
the least point of maidenly modesty and reserve in thinking so much of
him; and the more she questioned herself, the more agitated she grew
under her self-accusation: her temples throbbed viol