n truth, the boughs of the trees lend likeness to my
fancy, for as she dances into them, they seem to absorb her, even as
the laurel absorbed the Grecian nymph of old time.

Translated literally, the words of the Tea Song read thus--

"Ha! He! I love him,
Ha! He! I miss him."

This is a supremely cunning song, in that it utters in six words (if we
exclude the interjections) the summary of all the love songs which have
ever been written--"I love him: I miss him." I am glad it was framed
in the unsophisticated North.

And Fat of the Flowers sings another song which is addressed to her
lover. She is lonely for him, our interpreter explains, but drinks her
tears in silence. Sometimes his presence comes to her in the hour of
twilight, and she kneels to it as the poplar kneels to the wind. When
he returns to the camp fire she will give to him a blanket made out of
the claw skins of the lynx, and a white and scarlet belt from the young
quills of the porcupine.

I can see that her honeyed words are agreeable to Jacques and give him
fullness of pleasure, for there is a tell-tale joy in his face that
refuses to be hid.

Jacques, who is a riverman, was educated at a mission school on the
Mackenzie, and he tells me that Fat of the Flowers is nearly as
"magneloquent" and clever as a man. He is almost sure there is a
little white bird that sings in her heart.

After a time, our dusky friends steal away one by one to their rest, or
two by two. The ship lolls lazily on the bank and there is no sound
save the whimper of the fire and the deep breathing of some over-tired
sleeper, but once a sleeper laughed aloud.

I step carefully between the recumbent forms on the deck lest I hurt
them or disturb their quietude. I am sorry now that I stole the
mattresses. Surely I am a bitter sinner and unlovely of heart.

In the morning, when I told the Brothers how I had privily taken the
mattresses because I disapproved of their vows concerning marriage, and
because of the unseemly remarks Clement of Alexandria had applied to
women in the early days of the Christian era, they laughed again and
again with much hilarity. Indeed, one of the Brothers said he
applauded my moderation and marvelled that I was good enough to leave
their blankets and pillows. Another gave it as his opinion that
Clement's pleasantry was a shabby-minded one and needlessly sarcastic,
the result of an ill-governed disposition. But this Brother, like