assisted Amelie out of the canoe. As he led her across the
beach, he felt her hand tremble as it rested on his arm. He glanced down
at her averted face, and saw her eyes directed to a spot well remembered
by himself--the scene of his rescue from drowning by Pierre Philibert.

The whole scene came before Amelie at this moment. Her vivid
recollection conjured up the sight of the inanimate body of her brother
as it was brought ashore by the strong arm of Pierre Philibert and laid
upon the beach; her long agony of suspense, and her joy, the greatest
she had ever felt before or since, at his resuscitation to life, and
lastly, her passionate vow which she made when clasping the neck of his
preserver--a vow which she had enshrined as a holy thing in her heart
ever since.

At that moment a strange fancy seized her: that Pierre Philibert was
again plunging into deep water to rescue her brother, and that she would
be called on by some mysterious power to renew her vow or fulfil it to
the very letter.

She twitched Le Gardeur gently by the arm and said to him, in a half
whisper, "It was there, brother! do you remember?"

"I know it, sister!" replied he; "I was also thinking of it. I am
grateful to Pierre; yet, oh, my Amelie, better he had left me at the
bottom of the deep river, where I had found my bed! I have no pleasure
in seeing Tilly any more!"

"Why not, brother? Are we not all the same? Are we not all here? There
is happiness and comfort for you at Tilly."

"There was once, Amelie," replied he, sadly; "but there will be none for
me in the future, as I feel too well. I am not worthy of you, Amelie."

"Come, brother!" replied she, cheerily, "you dampen the joy of our
arrival. See, the flag is going up on the staff of the turret, and
old Martin is getting ready to fire off the culverin in honor of your
arrival."

Presently there was a flash, a cloud of smoke, and the report of a
cannon came booming down to the shore from the Manor House.

"That was well done of Martin and the women!" remarked Felix Baudoin,
who had served in his youth, and therefore knew what was fitting in
a military salute. "'The women of Tilly are better than the men of
Beauce,' says the proverb."

"Ay, or of Tilly either!" remarked Josephte Le Tardeur, in a sharp,
snapping tone. Josephte was a short, stout virago, with a turned-up nose
and a pair of black eyes that would bore you through like an auger.
She wore a wide-brimmed hat of straw, ove