derstanding was lacking.

"It seems an almost hopeless task," she said one day to Pere Jamay. "And
though the little girls in the convent seemed obtuse, they did
understand what devotion was. These children would worship me. When I
talk of the blessed Virgin they are fain to press their faces to the hem
of my gown, taking it to mean that I am our dear Lady of Sorrows.
Neither do they comprehend penance, they suppose they have offended me
personally."

"'Tis a curious race that God has allowed to sink to the lowest ebb,
that His laborers should work the harder in the vineyard. I do not
despair. There will come a glorious day when every soul shall bow the
knee to our blessed Lord. The men seem incapable of any true discernment
of holy things. But we must not weary in well-doing. Think what a
glorious thing it would be to convert this nation to the true faith."

The lady sighed. Many a day she went to her _prie-dieu_ not seven times,
but twice that, to pray for their conversion.

"We must win the children. They will grow up with some knowledge and
cast aside their superstitions. We must be filled with holy zeal and
never weary doing our Master's will."

She had tried to win Rose, as well as some of the more intelligent
half-breeds. But prayers were wearisome to the child. And why should you
ask the same thing over and over again? Even M. Destournier, she had
noticed, did not like to be importuned, and why then the great God, who
had all the world to care for, and sent to His creatures what He thought
best.

The child looked out on the wide vault so full of stars, and her heart
was thrilled with the great mystery. What was the beautiful world beyond
that was called heaven? What did they know who had never seen it? The
splendor of the great white moon--moving majestically through the
blue--touched her with a sort of ecstasy. Was it another world? And how
tenderly it seemed to touch the tree tops, silvering the branches and
deepening the shadows until they were haunts of darkness. Did not other
gods dwell there, as those old people in the islands on the other side
of the world dreamed? Over the river hung trailing clouds of misty
sheen, there was a musical lapping of the waves, the curious vibration
of countless insects--now the shrill cry of some night bird, then such
softness again that the world seemed asleep.

"_Ma fille, ma fille_," and the half-inquiring accent of Wanamee's voice
fell on her ear.

"I am here.