nd and beautiful Virginie--for her goodness had made him remember
her as beautiful, though indeed she was but comely, like this woman who
stayed him as he walked by the river.

"You are M'sieu' Jean Jacques Barbille?" she said questioningly.

"How did you know?" he asked.... "Is Virginie Poucette here?"

"Ah, you knew me from her?" she asked.

"There was something about her--and you have it also--and the look in
the eyes, and then the lips!" he replied.

Certainly they were quite wonderful, luxurious lips, and so shapely
too--like those of Virginie.

"But how did you know I was Jean Jacques Barbille?" he repeated.

"Well, then it is quite easy," she replied with a laugh almost like a
giggle, for she was quite as simple and primitive as her sister. "There
is a photographer at Vilray, and Virginie got one of your pictures
there, and sent, it to me. 'He may come your way,' said Virginie to me,
'and if he does, do not forget that he is my friend.'"

"That she is my friend," corrected Jean Jacques. "And what a
friend--merci, what a friend!" Suddenly he caught the woman's arm. "You
once wrote to your sister about my Zoe, my daughter, that married and
ran away--"

"That ran away and got married," she interrupted.

"Is there any more news--tell me, do you know-?"

But Virginie's sister shook her head. "Only once since I wrote Virginie
have I heard, and then the two poor children--but how helpless they
were, clinging to each other so! Well, then, once I heard from Faragay,
but that was much more than a year ago. Nothing since, and they were
going on--on to Fort Providence to spend the winter--for his health--his
lungs."

"What to do--on what to live?" moaned Jean Jacques.

"His grandmother sent him a thousand dollars, so your Madame Zoe wrote
me."

Jean Jacques raised a hand with a gesture of emotion. "Ah, the blessed
woman! May there be no purgatory for her, but Heaven at once and
always!"

"Come home with me--where are your things?" she asked.

"I have only a knapsack," he replied. "It is not far from here. But I
cannot stay with you. I have no claim. No, I will not, for--"

"As to that, we keep a tavern," she returned. "You can come the same
as the rest of the world. The company is mixed, but there it is. You
needn't eat off the same plate, as they say in Quebec."

Quebec! He looked at her with the face of one who saw a vision. How like
Virginie Poucette--the brave, generous Virginie--how like she was!