ce to starve than another?

"And wish us a safe return."

The look in his eyes disconcerted her for an instant. Her own drooped.
She was acquiring a woman's wisdom.

"I do that most heartily," she made answer, turning aside; but the
admiration lingered over her fine, yet strong figure, with its grace of
movement. The beautiful eyes haunted him, if they were turned away.

Such forays were not uncommon among the tribes. The Iroquois had planted
more than one storehouse in the wilderness, in most secluded places. It
saved carrying burthens, as they wandered about, or if in desperate
weather, they set up their wigwams, and remained eating and sleeping,
until hunger drove them elsewhere.

A ship had come down from Acadia with news that several English vessels
were hovering about. They offered to take some of the women and
children, and M. de Champlain was thankful for this. By spring there
must be some change in affairs. The mother country could not wholly
forget them.

Rose wondered at times that miladi remained so tranquil. She slept a
great deal, and it was an immense relief. It seemed occasionally that
her mind wandered, though it was mostly vague mutterings.

Once she said quite clearly--"I will not have the child. You will come
to love her better than you do me."

Then she opened her eyes and fixed them on Rose, with a hard, cold
stare.

"Go away," she cried. "Go away. I will not have you here to steal his
love from me. You are only a child, but one day you will be a woman. And
I shall be growing old, old! A woman's youth ought to come back to her
for a brief while."

Rose's heart swelled within her. Was this why miladi had taken such
queer spells, and sometimes been unkind to her for days? And M.
Destournier had always stood her friend.

Yet she felt infinitely sorry for miladi, and that calmed her first
burst of indignation. She went out to the forest to walk. The withered
leaves lay thick on the ground, they had not been as beautiful as in
some autumns, the drought had turned them brown too soon. The white
birches seemed like lovely ghosts haunting the darkened spaces. Children
were digging for fallen nuts, even edible roots, and breaking off
sassafras twigs. What would they do before spring, if relief did not
come!

Suppose she went away with the next vessel that came in. But then she
had promised. Oh, yes, she must look after miladi, just as carefully as
if there were depths of love between them. H