p up
with her. Pierre's inventive faculty came to a halt.

"Nay, that I do not know," he replied; "but the people are all gathered
around her, and they all cry out for thee by thy name. There is none
like thee, Tantibba, they say, if one has a wound."

Hetty quickened her pace to a run. As she entered the Square, she saw
such crowds around the basin that Pierre's tale seemed amply
corroborated. Pressing in at the outer edge of the circle, she
exclaimed, looking to right and left, "Where is the child? Where is Mere
Michaud?" Every one looked bewildered; no one answered. Pierre, with an
upward fling of his agile legs, disappeared to seek his carnation; and
Hetty found herself, in an instant more, surrounded by a crowd of
children, each in its finest clothes, and each bearing a small pot with
a flowering-plant in it.

"For thee! For thee! The good saints bless the day thou wert born!" they
all cried, pressing nearer, and lifting high their little pots.

"See my carnation!" shouted Pierre, struggling nearer to Hetty. "And my
jonquil!" "And my pansies!" "And this forget-me-not!" cried the
children, growing more and more excited each moment; while the chorus,
"For thee! For thee! The good saints bless the day thou wert born!" rose
on all sides.

Hetty was bewildered.

"What does all this mean?" she said helplessly.

Then, catching Pierre by the shoulder so suddenly that his red carnation
tottered and nearly fell, she exclaimed:

"You mischievous boy! Where is the child that was bitten? Have you told
me a lie?"

At this moment, Pierre's mother, pushing through the crowd, exclaimed:

"Ah! but thou must forgive him. It was I that sent him to lie to thee,
that thou shouldst not go home. We go with thee, to do our honor to the
day on which thou wert born!"

And so saying, Mere Michaud turned, and swinging high up in the air one
end of a long wreath of feathery ground-pine, led off the procession.
The rest followed in preconcerted order, till some forty men and women,
all linked together by the swinging loops of the pine wreath, were in
line. Then they suddenly wheeled and surrounded the bewildered Hetty,
and bore her with them. The children, carrying their little pots of
flowers, ran along shouting and screaming with laughter to see the good
"Tantibba" so amazed. Louder and louder rose the chorus:

"For thee! For thee! May the good saints bless the day thou wert born!"

Hetty was speechless: her cheeks flushed. She