acify her. By-and-by she
ceased to weep, and went about the cottage with a dreary, disconsolate
air that cut Antoine to the heart. Before the year ended, he noticed
that the ruddy tinge had fled from her cheek, that her eyes had grown
languid, and her slight figure more willowy than ever.

A physician was called. He could discover nothing wrong with the child,
except this fading and drooping. He failed to account for that. It was
some vague disease of the mind, he said, beyond his skill.

So Anglice faded day after day. She seldom left the room now. Antoine
could not shut out the fact that the child was passing away. He had
learned to love her so!

"Dear heart," he said once, "what is't ails thee?"

"Nothing, _mon pere_"--for so she called him.

The winter passed, the balmy spring air had come, and Anglice seemed to
revive. In her little bamboo chair, on the porch, she swayed to and
fro in the fragrant breeze, with a peculiar undulating motion, like a
graceful tree.

At times something seemed to weigh upon her mind. Antoine noticed it,
and waited. At length she spoke.

"Near our house," said little Anglice, "near our house, on the island,
the palm-trees are waving under the blue sky. Oh, how beautiful! I seem
to lie beneath them all day long. I am very, very happy. I yearned for
them until I grew sick,--don't you think so, _mon pere_?"

"_Mon Dieu_, yes!" exclaimed Antoine, suddenly. "Let us hasten to those
pleasant islands where the palms are waving."

Anglice smiled.

"I am going there, _mon pere!_"

Ay, indeed. A week from that evening the wax candles burned at her feet
and forehead, lighting her on the journey.

All was over. Now was Antoine's heart empty. He had nothing to do but to
lay the blighted flower away.

Pere Antoine made a shallow grave in his garden, and heaped the fresh
brown mould over his idol.

In the genial spring evenings the priest was seen sitting by the mound,
his finger closed in the unread prayer-book.

The summer broke on that sunny land; and in the cool morning twilight,
and after nightfall, Antoine lingered by the grave. He could never be
with it enough.

One morning he observed a delicate stem, with two curiously shaped
emerald leaves, springing up from the centre of the mound. At first he
merely noticed it casually; but at length the plant grew so tall, and
was so strangely unlike anything he had ever seen before, that he
examined it with care.

How straight and gra