n to her half-Oriental, half-elfin beauty. Her cheeks
showed no color; there were brown shadows under her eyes. On her
slender brown hand shone the wedding ring. The picture was well
executed, and had been carefully tinted under Pere Michaux's eye: the
old priest knew that it was Rast's best excuse.

Now that Anne was freed, he felt no animosity toward the young husband;
on the contrary, he wished to advance his interests in every way that he
could. Tita was a selfish little creature, yet she adored her husband.
She would have killed herself for him at any moment. But first she would
have killed him.

He saw them start for the far West, and then he returned northward to
his island home. Miss Lois, disheartened by all that had happened,
busied herself in taking care of the boys dumbly, and often shook her
head at the fire when sitting alone with her knitting. She never opened
the old piano now, and she was less stringent with her Indian servants;
she would even have given up quietly her perennial alphabet teaching if
Pere Michaux had not discovered the intention, and quizzically approved
it, whereat, of course, she was obliged to go on. In truth, the old man
did this purposely, having noticed the change in his old antagonist. He
fell into the habit of coming to the church-house more frequently--to
teach the boys, he said. He did teach the little rascals, and taught
them well, but he also talked to Miss Lois. The original founders of the
church-house would have been well astonished could they have risen from
their graves and beheld the old priest and the New England woman sitting
on opposite sides of the fire in the neat shining room, which still
retained its Puritan air in spite of years, the boys, and Episcopal
apostasy.

Regarding Rast's conduct, Miss Lois maintained a grim silence. The
foundations of her faith in life had been shaken; but how could she,
supposed to be a sternly practical person, confess it to the
world--confess that she had dreamed like a girl over this broken
betrothal?

"Do you not see how much happier, freer, she is?" the priest would say,
after reading one of Anne's letters. "The very tone betrays it."

Miss Lois sighed deeply, and poked the fire.

"Pooh! pooh! Do you want her to be _un_happy?" said the old man.
"Suppose that it had been the other way? Why not rejoice as I do over
her cheerfulness?"

"Why not indeed?" thought Miss Lois. But that stubborn old heart of hers
would not let he