eir tin sticks guarded this figure, and
beneath, on the floor, was spread an otter-skin of perfect beauty. The
seats were of pine, without backs, and the wind whistled through the
chinks between the logs. Moreover, the place was dirty. Lenten service
had been out of the question. The living had neither time nor strength
to come to worship; and the dead were not given the honor of a burial
from church in these times of terror. The priest looked about him in
dismay, the place was so utterly forsaken; yet to let Easter go by
without recognition was not to his liking. He had been the night
before to every house in the settlement, bidding the people to come to
devotions on Sunday morning. He knew that not one of them would
refuse his invitation. There was no hero larger in the eyes of these
unfortunates than the simple priest who walked among them with his
unpretentious piety. The promises were given with whispered blessings,
and there were voices that broke in making them, and hands that shook
with honest gratitude. The priest, remembering these things, and all the
awful suffering of the winter, determined to make the service symbolic,
indeed, of the resurrection and the life,--the annual resurrection and
life that comes each year, a palpable miracle, to teach the dullest that
God reigns.

"How are you going to trim the altar?" cried a voice behind him.

He turned, startled, and in the doorway stood Mademoiselle Ninon,
her short skirt belted with a red silk scarf,--the token of some
trapper,--her ankles protected with fringed leggins, her head covered
with a beribboned hat of felt, such as the voyageurs wore.

"Our devotions will be the only decorations we can hang on it. But
gratitude is better than blossoms, and humanity more beautiful than
green wreaths," said the father, gently.

It was a curious thing, and one that he had often noticed himself; he
gave this woman--unworthy as she was--the best of his simple thoughts.

Ninon tiptoed toward the priest with one finger coquettishly raised to
insure secrecy.

"You will never believe it," she whispered, "no one would believe it!
But the fact is, father, I have two lilies."

"Lilies," cried the priest, incredulously, "two lilies?"

"That's what I say, father--two marvellously fair lilies with little
sceptres of gold in them, and leaves as white as snow. The bulbs were
brought me last autumn by--; that is to say, they were brought from St.
Louis. Only now have they bl