glory and
richness. Sunshine scattered golden rays and made a clarified atmosphere
that dazzled. The river with rosy fogs in the morning, the quivering
breath of noon when spirals of yellow light shot up, changing tints and
pallors every moment, the softer purplish coloring as the sun began to
drop behind the tree tops, illuminating the different shades of green
and intensifying the birches until one could imagine them white-robed
ghosts. The sails on the river, the rambles in the woods, were Jeanne's
delight once more, and with so charming a companion as M. St. Armand,
her cup seemed full of joy.

At times the thought of her lonely mother haunted her. Yet what a dreary
life it must be that had robbed her of every semblance of youth and set
stern lines in her face, that had uprooted the sweetest human love! How
could she have turned from the husband of her choice, and that husband
so brave and tender a man as Sieur Angelot? For day by day it seemed to
Jeanne that she found new graces and tenderness in him.

Yet she knew she must pain him, too. Only for a brief while, perhaps.
And--there was a curious hesitation about the new home.

"Jeanne," he said one afternoon, when they, too, were lingering idly
about the suburban part of the town, the gardens, the orchards, the long
fields stretching back distantly, here and there a cottage, a nest of
bloom. There were the stolid farmers working in their old-fashioned
methods, there was a sound of strokes in the dusky woods where some men
were chopping that brought faint, reverberating echoes, there was the
humming of bees, the laughter of children. Little naked Indian babies
ran about, the sun making the copper of their skins burnished, squaws
sat with bead work, young fellows were playing games with smooth stones
or throwing at a mark. French women had brought their wheels out under
the shade of some tree, and were making a pleasant whir with the
spinning.

"Jeanne," he began again, "it is time for me to go up North. And I must
take you, my daughter--" looking at her with questioning eyes.

She raised her hand as if to entreat. A soft color wavered over her
face, and then she glanced up with a gentle gravity.

"Oh, my father, leave me here a little longer. I cannot go now;" and her
voice was persuasively sweet.

"Cannot--why?" There was insistence in his tone.

"There is Pani--"

"But we will take Pani. I would not think of leaving her behind."

"She will not go. I h