"And all this for a mere boy!" she said, superbly.

Miss Lois stopped crying from sheer astonishment. "And pray, may I ask,
what are you?" she demanded.

"A girl; and about on a line with the boy referred to," replied Miss
Tita, composedly. "Anne is much too old."

The boys gave a laugh of scorn. Tita turned and looked at them, and they
took to the woods for the day. Miss Lois cried no more, but began to
sew; there was a vague dread in her heart as to what the winter would be
with Tita in the church-house. "If I could only cut off her hair!" she
thought, with a remembrance of Samson. "Never was such hair seen on any
child before."

As Tita sat on her low bench, the two long thick braids of her black
hair certainly did touch the floor; and most New England women, who,
whether from the nipping climate or their Roundhead origin, have, as a
class, rather scanty locks, would have agreed with Miss Lois that "such
a mane" was unnatural on a girl of that age--indeed, intolerable.

Amid much sewing, planning, and busy labor, time flew on. Dr. Gaston did
not pretend to do anything else now save come down early in the morning
to the Agency, and remain nearly all day, sitting in an arm-chair,
sometimes with a book before him, but hardly turning a page. His dear
young pupil, his almost child, was going away. He tried not to think how
lonely he should be without her. Pere Michaux came frequently; he spoke
to Tita with a new severity, and often with a slight shade of sarcasm in
his voice. "Are you not a little too severe with her?" asked Miss Lois
one day, really fearing lest Tita, in revenge, might go out on some dark
night and set fire to the house.

"He is my priest, isn't he, and not yours? He shall order me to do what
he pleases, and I shall do it," answered the small person whom she had
intended to defend.

And now every day more and more beautiful grew the hues on the trees; it
was a last intensity of color before the long, cold, dead-white winter.
All the maple and oak leaves were now scarlet, orange, or crimson, each
hue vivid; they died in a glory to which no tropical leaf ever attains.
The air was warm, hazy, and still--the true air of Indian summer; and as
if to justify the term, the Indians on the mainland and islands were
busy bringing potatoes and game to the village to sell, fishing, cutting
wood, and begging, full of a tardy activity before the approach of
winter. Anne watched them crossing in their canoes, a