and the danger of going out was her last
thought. The cavern's mouth was a very awkward opening to crawl through,
especially if an Indian should catch one in the act. There was nothing
to do but to sit down and wait.

A sigh of pleasure, as at inhaling the spirit of a flower, escaped her
lips. This lad, whose presence she knew she would feel without seeing
if he came into church behind her, innocent of the spell he was casting,
still sat guarding the entrance, though the droop of utter weariness
relaxed every posture. Marianson bade him lie down on the fur robe, and
imperiously arranged her lap to hold his head.

"I am maman to you. I say to you sleep, and you shall sleep."

The appealing and thankful eyes of the boy were closed almost as soon
as he crept upon the robe and his head sunk in its comfortable pillow.
Marianson braced her back against the wall and dropped her hands at her
sides. Occasionally she glanced at the low rim of light. No Indian could
enter without lying flat. She had little dread of the Sioux.

Every globule which fell in darkness from the rock recorded, like the
sand grain of an hour-glass, some change in Marianson.

"I not care for anybody, me," had been her boast when she tantalized
soldiers on the village street. Her gurgle of laughter, and the hair
blowing on her temples from under the blanket she drew around her face,
worked havoc in Mackinac. To her men were merely useful objects, like
cows, or houses, or gardens, or boats. She hugged the social liberty of
a woman who had safely passed through matrimony and widowhood. Married
to old Andre Chenier by her parents, that he might guard her after their
death, she loathed the thought of another wearisome tie, and called it
veneration of his departed spirit. He left her a house, a cow, and a
boat. Accustomed to work for him, she found it much easier to work for
herself when he was gone, and resented having young men hang around
desiring to settle in her house. She laughed at every proposal a father
or mother made her. No family on the island could get her, and all
united in pointing her out as a bad pattern for young women.

A bloom like the rose flushing of early maidenhood came over Marianson
with her freedom. Isolated and daring and passionless, she had no
conception of the scandal she caused in the minds of those who carried
the burdens of the community, but lived like a bird of the air. Wives
who bore children and kept the pot boiling fou