a little about
her future. While he lived--well, the Sieur de Champlain was well and
hearty, and much older. She was only a child yet, though she had
suddenly grown tall. He could care for her in the years to come, and she
would no doubt find a mate. He knew very little about girls. They
generally went to convents and were educated and husbands were chosen
for them by their parents. But in this new world matters had changed.
There was talk of a convent to train the Indian girls, and the
half-breeds who took more readily to civilization. The priests were in
earnest about it, but money was lacking. Rose had picked up much useful
knowledge, and knew some things unusual for a girl. Good Father Jamay
would be shocked at Terence, Aristophanes, and Virgil for a girl.

"So you do not like marriage?" he said, rather jestingly.

She shook her head.

"But then you know nothing about it."

"Why, there is the Sieur and the beautiful Madame. And you and miladi.
And Marie, with her dirty house and her babies. She is not as nice as
the Indian women. And they have to wait upon the braves or else, when
the braves are off fur hunting, they have to plant the crops and catch
fish, and even hunt and mend tents, and do such hard work. All that is
no delight like dreaming on the moss in the woods, and talking to the
birds, and breathing the fragrance all about, and having rushes of
delight sweep over you like a waft from the beautiful heaven above. Oh,
why should I marry; to think of some one else that I do not want and not
feel that my life was my very own."

He studied the youthful unconscious face before him, the clear, fine
skin, a few shades deeper from the daily contact with sun and much
dallying on the river; the beautiful dark eyes that seemed always
gathering the choicest of life, with joy and wonder; the rounded cheeks,
with exquisitely-faint coloring, seeming to join the clear-cut chin,
with its dimpled cleft melting into the shapely throat, that upheld it
like a flower on a strong, yet delicate stem. He was strangely moved by
the peculiar aloofness of the beauty.

Her soft hair hung about her like a cloud, the curling ends moved now
and then as if by their own vigorous life. Indeed, there was an intense
sort of vitality about her that, quiescent as it often was, in this
trifling, daily round, could shoot up into a bewildering flame. Perhaps
that was love. She did not have it for Eustache Boulle, she might never
have it for