as lighted by the western glow, on which she fixed
her eyes with such intentness that she did not perceive the woman who
awaited her with now such mixed emotions.

But Tom saw. Tom, the eagle, perched in the bow, keen of vision and of
prejudice. Between him and old Angelique was a grudge of long
standing. Whenever they met, even after a brief separation, he
expressed his feelings by his hoarsest screech. He did so now and, by
so doing, recalled Margot from sky-gazing and his enemy from doubt.

"Ah! Angelique! Watching for me? How kind of you. Hush, Tom. Let her
alone, good Angelique, poor Angelique!"

The eagle flapped his wings with a melancholy disdain and plunged his
beak in his breast. The old woman on the beach was not worth minding,
after all, by a monarch of the sky--as he would be but for his broken
wing--but the girl was worth everything, even his obedience.

She laughed at his sulkiness, plying her paddle the faster, and soon
reached the pebbly beach, where she sprang out, and drawing her canoe
out of the water, swept her old nurse a curtsey.

"Home again, mother, and hungry for my supper."

"Supper, indeed! Breakin' my heart with your run-about ways! and the
hoorican', with ever'thin' ruined, ever'thin'! The master---- Where's
he, I know not. The great pine broken like a match; the coops, the
cow-house, and Snowfoot---- Ah, me! Yet the little one talks of
supper!"

Margot looked about her in astonishment, scarcely noticing the other's
words. The devastation of her beloved home was evident, even down on
the open beach, and she dared not think what it might be further
inland.

"Why, it must have been a cyclone! We were reading about them only
yesterday and Uncle Hugh--did you say that you knew--where is he?"

Angelique shook her head.

"Can I tell anythin', me? Into the storm he went and out of it he will
come alive, as you have. If the good Lord wills," she added
reverently.

The girl sprang to the woman's side, and caught her arm impatiently.

"Tell me, quick. Where is he? where did you last see him?"

"Goin' into the hoorican', with wood upon his shoulder. To make a
beacon for you. So I guess. But you--tell how you come alive out of
all that?" Sweeping her arm over the outlook.

Margot did not stop to answer but darted toward the point of rocks
where, if anywhere, she knew her guardian would have tried his signal
fire. In a moment she found him.

"Angelique! Angelique! He's here. Quick--qu