up into his. Yes, she was glad to see him, glad with the
impulsive gladness of a little younger sister to see an indulgent
brother, old and grave, yet beloved. But Mr. Gilbert, holding those
hands, looking into that eager, sparkling face, drew no such nice
distinctions.

"Thank you, mademoiselle. You have not quite forgotten me, then, after
all?"

"Forgotten you, monsieur? Oh, my memory is better than that. You have
come to pay us that promised visit, have you not? Uncle Reuben has been
looking for you ever since the first of June, and Aunt Hester is never
so happy as when she has company. You have come to stay, I know."

"Well, I'm not sure about that, Miss Bourdon. I may remain a week or
two, certainly. New York is not habitable after the first week of July,
but I am stopping at the Preble House. I am too much of a stranger to
trespass on your good uncle's hospitality."

"You have been kind to me, monsieur, and you are a stranger no more.
Besides, it is dull here--pleasant but dull, and it will be a second
kindness to enliven us with a little New York society."

She laughed and drew away her hands. The golden light of the July
afternoon gilded the girlish face, upon which the New York gentleman
gazed with an admiration he did not try to hide.

"Dull," he repeated; "you don't find it dull, I should think. Your face
tells a very different story."

Mademoiselle shook back her rippling satin hair, and made a little
French _moue mutine_.

"Ah, but it is. Only the fields and the flowers, the trees and the
birds, the eating and sleeping, and reading. Now, flowers and fields and
birds are very nice and pleasant things, but I like people, new faces,
new friends, pleasure, excitement, change. I ride the horse, I milk the
cows, I pick the strawberries, I darn the stockings, I play the piano, I
make the beds, I read the novels. But I see nobody--nobody--nobody, and
it is dull."

"Then you prefer the old life and Montreal?"

"Montreal!" Miss Bourdon's black eyes flashed out, as your black eyes
can. "Monsieur," solemnly, "I adore Montreal. It was always new and
always nice there; bright and gay and French. French! it is all Yankee
here, not but that I like Yankees too. Aunt Hester thinks," a merry
laugh, "there never was anybody born like me, and Uncle Reuben thinks I
would be an angel if I didn't read so many novels and eat so many
custard pies. And, monsieur," with the saucy uplifted coquettish glance
he remembered