t's house, and that the Little
Chemist's wife had wept over them and carried the case to the shrine of
the Blessed Virgin.

It did not matter that the father and brothers stormed. Annette was
firm; the dot was hers, and she would do as she wished. She carried the
money to the miller. He took it grimly and gave her a receipt, grossly
mis-spelled, and, as she was about to go, brought his fist heavily
down on his leg and said: "Mon Dieu, it is brave--it is grand--it is an
angel." Then he chuckled: "So, so! It was true. I am old, ugly, and a
fool. Eh, well, I have my money!" Then he took to counting it over in
his hand, forgetting her, and she left him growling gleefully over it.

She had not a happy life, but her people left her alone, for the Cure
had said stern things to them. All during the winter she went out
fishing every day at a great hole in the ice--bitter cold work, and
fit only for a man; but she caught many fish, and little by little laid
aside pennies to buy things to replace what she had sold. It had been a
hard trial to her to sell them. But for the kind-hearted Cure she would
have repined. The worst thing happened, however, when the ring Benoit
had given her dropped from her thin finger into the water where she was
fishing. Then a shadow descended on her, and she grew almost unearthly
in the anxious patience of her face. The Little Chemist's wife declared
that the look was death. Perhaps it would have been if Medallion had not
sent a lad down to the bottom of the river and got the ring. He gave it
to the Cure, who put it on her finger one day after confession. Then she
brightened, and waited on and on patiently.

She waited for seven years. Then the deceitful Benoit came pensively
back to her, a cripple from a timber accident. She believed what he told
her; and that was where her comedy ended and her tragedy began.

THE MARRIAGE OF THE MILLER

Medallion put it into his head on the day that Benoit and Annette were
married. "See," said Medallion, "Annette wouldn't have you--and quite
right--and she took what was left of that Benoit, who'll laugh at you
over his mush-and-milk."

"Benoit will want flour some day, with no money." The old man chuckled
and rubbed his hands. "That's nothing; he has the girl--an angel!" "Good
enough, that is what I said of her--an angel!"

"Get married yourself, Farette."

For reply Farette thrust a bag of native tabac into Medallion's hands.
Then they went over the n