and
keep you company."

"Nay, little one, I am not a baby to be watched," Pani protested.

Jeanne laughed. She looked very sweet and charming in her blue and white
frock made in a plain fashion, for it did not seem becoming in her to
simulate the style of the great ladies. A soft, white kerchief was drawn
in a knot about her shoulders, showing the shapely throat that was
nearer ivory than pearl. In the knot she drew a few violets. Head gear
she usually disdained, but now she put over her curls a dainty white cap
that made a delicious contrast with the dark rings nestling below the
edge. A pretty, lissome girl, with a step so light it would not have
crushed the grass under her feet, had there been any.

"There seems a great stir in the town," she said.

They had turned into St. Anne's street and were going toward the church.

"The new Governor General Hull is to come in a few weeks, and the
officers have word to look him up a home, for governors have not lived
in Detroit before. No doubt there will be fine times among the
Americans."

"And there flies a white flag down at the river's edge--has that
something to do with it?"

"Oh, the boat came in last evening. It is one of the great men up at the
North, I think in the fur company. But he has much influence over the
Indian tribes, and somehow there is a whisper that there may be
disaffection and another union such as there was in Pontiac's time,
which heaven forbid! He is called the White Chief."

"The White Chief!" Jeanne stopped short in a maze of astonishment.

"That has nothing to do with thee," said the priest. He preferred her
interest to run in another channel.

"But--I was on his island. I saw his wife and children, you remember.
Oh, I must see him--"

"Not now;"--and her guide put out his hand.

"Oh, no," and she gave a short laugh. "As if I would go running after a
strange man; a great chief! But he is not an Indian. He is French."

"I do remember, yes. There seems a great commotion, as if all the ships
had come in. The winter was so long and cold that business is all the
more brisk. Here, child, pay a little attention to where you are going.
There is a lack of reverence in you young people that pains me."

"Pardon me, father." Jeanne knelt on the church steps and crossed
herself. She had run up here in the dark the first night she had been
back in Detroit, just to kneel and give thanks, but she had told no one.

Then she walked decorously bes