ick---- He's---- Oh! is he
dead, is he dead?"

There was both French and Indian blood in mother Ricord's veins, a
passionate loyalty in her heart, and the suppleness of youth still in
her spare frame. With a dash she was at the girl's side and had thrust
her away, to kneel herself and lift her master's head from its hard
pillow of rock.

With swift nervous motions she unfastened his coat and bent her ear to
his breast.

"'Tis only a faint, maybe shock. In all the world was only Margot, and
Margot was lost. Ugh! the hail. See, it is still here--look! water,
and--yes, the tea! It was for you---- Ah!"

Her words ended with a sigh of satisfaction as a slight motion stirred
the features into which she peered so earnestly, and she raised her
master's head a bit higher. Then his eyes slowly opened and the dazed
look gradually gave place to a normal expression.

"Why, Margot! Angelique? What's happened?"

"Oh! Uncle Hugh! are you hurt? are you ill? I found you here behind
the rocks and Angelique says--but I wasn't hurt at all. I wasn't out
in any storm, didn't know there had been one, that is, worth minding,
till I came home----"

"Like a ghost out of the lake. She was not even dead, not she. And she
was singin' fit to burst her throat while you were--well, maybe, not
dead, yourself."

At this juncture, Tom, the inquisitive, thrust his white head forward
into the midst of the group and, in her relief from her first fear,
Margot laughed aloud.

"Don't, Tom! You're one of the family, of course, and since none of
the rest of us will die to please that broken mirror, you may have to!
Especially, if there's a new brood out----"

But here Angelique threw up her free hand with such a gesture of
despair that Margot said no more, and her face sobered again,
remembering that, even though they were all still alive, there might
be suffering untold among her humbler woodland friends. Then, as Mr.
Dutton rose, almost unaided, a fresh regret came:

"That there should be a cyclone, right here at home, and I not to see
it! See! Look, uncle, look! You can trace its very path, just as we
read. Away to the south there is no sign of it, nor on the northeast.
It must have swept up to us out of the southeast and taken our island
in its track. Oh! I wouldn't have missed it for anything."

The man rested his hand upon her shoulder and turned her gently
homeward. His weakness had left him as it had come upon him, with a
suddenness like