y. Barbe is to help her mother
and care for the babies. I like Marie some," nodding indecisively, "but
I wish there was a girl who liked to run and play, and climb trees, and
talk to the birds, and oh, do a hundred things, all different from the
other."

She gave a little hop and a laugh of exquisite freedom. She was full of
restless grace, as the birds themselves; her blooming cheeks and shining
eyes, the way she carried her head, the face breaking into dimples with
every motion, the mouth tempting in its rosy sweetness. He bent and
kissed her. She held him a moment by the shoulders.

"Oh, I like you, I like you," she cried. "You are above them all, you
have something,"--her pretty brow knit,--"yet you are better than the
Sieur even, the best of them all. If you will wait a long while I might
marry you, but no other, no other," shaking her curls.

He laughed, yet it was not from her naive confession. She did not
realize what she was saying.

"How old am I?" insistently.

"About ten, I think."

"Ten. And ten more would be twenty. Is that old?"

"Oh, no."

"And Madame de Champlain was twelve when she was married in France.
Well, I suppose that is right. And--two years more! No, M'sieu, I shall
wait until I am twenty. Maybe I shall not want to climb trees then, nor
scramble over rocks, nor chase the squirrels, and pelt them with nuts."

"Thou wilt be a decorous little lady then."

"That is a long way off."

"Yes. And Wanamee is calling thee."

"The priest says we must call her Jolette, that is her Christian name.
Must I have another name? Well, I will not. Good-night," and away she
ran.

He fell into rumination again. What would she say to his marriage? He
had a misgiving she would take it rather hardly. She had not been so
rapturously in love with miladi of late, but since the death of her
husband, the rather noisy glee of the child had annoyed her. She would
be better now. Of course they would keep the child, she had no other
friends, nor home.

Marie Gaudrion's marriage was quite a mystery to Rose. That any one
could love such an uncouth fellow as Jules, that a girl could leave the
comfortable home and pretty garden, for now the fruit trees had grown
and were full of fragrant bloom in the early season, and the ripening
fruit later on, and go to that dismal little place under the rocks.

"You see it will be much warmer," Jules had said. It was built against
the rock. "This will shield us from the nor