ded through the woods like a deer, winding in and out of the stately
columns that were here silver-gray, there white; beech and birch, dark
hemlocks, that not having space to branch out, grew up tall with a head
almost like a palm. Insects hummed and shrilled, or whirred like a tiny
orchestra. Now and then a bird flung out a strain of melody, squirrels
ran about, and the doe came and put its nose in her hand. She had tied a
strip of skin, colored red, about its neck, that no one might shoot it.
The rich, deep moss cushioned the ground. Occasionally an acorn fell.
She would sit here in dreamy content by the hours, often just enjoying,
sometimes puzzling her brains over all the mysteries that in the years
to come education would solve. So few could read, indeed books were only
for the few.

Then she ran up and down the rocks, hid in the nooks, came out again in
dryad fashion. She had been wont to laugh and make echoes ring about,
but now her heart, in spite of all she could do, was not light enough
for that. Wanamee was sore troubled by her reticence, for she was too
proud to make any complaint. Indeed, she did not know what to complain
of. In her childish heart everything was vague, she could not reason,
she could only feel that something had been snatched out of her life and
set in another's. She would henceforth be lonely.

"Miladi wants to see you," said Wanamee one morning. "She wonders why
you do not run in as you used. And she has something joyful to tell
you."

Rose shut her lips tightly together and stamped on the floor.

"Oh, _ma petite_, you have guessed then! Or, perhaps M'sieu told you.
Miladi is to marry him, and they are to go to the nice new house he is
building. They are to take you and me and Pani. And he will have the two
Montagnais, who have been his good servants. We shall get out of this
old, tumble-down post station, and be near the Heberts. Then M'sieu is
getting such a nice big wheat field and garden."

Rose was drawing long breaths. She would not cry or utter a complaint.
Wanamee approached her, holding out both hands.

"Do not touch me," she entreated, in a passionate tone. "Do not say
anything more. When I am a little tranquil I will go and see her. I know
what she wants me to say--that I am glad. There is something just here
that keeps me from being glad," and she pressed her hands tightly over
her heart. "I do not know what it is."

"Surely you are not jealous of miladi? They are grown