ere? Perchance no more. She could not--would not--leave him
thus. She would turn back at the last moment! She would go back!

She rose to her feet so precipitately that with the shifting of her
weight the canoe careened suddenly and was momentarily in danger of
capsizing with all on board. Willinawaugh glanced up with a kindling eye
and a ferocious growl. Hamish, throwing himself skillfully on the
opposite side, adroitly trimmed the boat. His look of warning,
upbraiding and yet sympathizing, steadied Odalie's nerves as she sank
back into her place. She tactfully made it appear that she had
accidentally come near to dropping the little girl from her grasp and
rising to recover her had shaken the poise of the frail craft.
Willinawaugh's mutter of dissatisfaction showed that he esteemed the
possibility no very great mischance, and set no high store on Josephine.
Now and again he eyed the cat, too, malevolently, as if he could ill
brook her mannerisms and pampered mien. Hamish had an uncomfortable idea
that the Cherokee was not familiar with animals of this kind, and that
he harbored a wonder if Kitty would not serve her best and noblest
possibilities in a savory stew. But for himself Hamish avoided the
Indian's eyes with their curious painted circles of black and white, as
much as he might, for whenever their glances met, Willinawaugh's facial
contortion to deride the "fonny" disposition he deemed a part of
Hamish's supposed French nature so daunted the boy that he bent his
head as well as his muscles to the work.

That day was like a dream to Odalie, and, indeed, from the incongruity
of her mental images she hardly knew whether she was sleeping or waking.
One moment it seemed to her that she was in Carolina, in the new frame
mansion that she had always thought so fine, sitting on the arm of her
grandmother's chair, with her dark hair against the white locks and the
snowy cap, while she babbled, in the sweet household patois of French
children that has no lexicon, and no rules, and is handed down from one
generation to another, her girlish hopes, and plans, and anxieties, to
find the grandmother's fine, old, deft hand smooth all the difficulties
away and make life easy, and hope possible, and trouble a mere shadow.

Alas! that brightening perspective of the colonial garden, where the
jasmine, gold and white, clung to the tall trellises, and the clove
gillyflower, and the lilies and roses grew in the borders in the broad