re; it had been
washed clean of all its impurities by a few showers in the night. Every
object seemed nearer and clearer to the eye, while the delicious odor of
fresh flowers filled the whole air with fragrance.

The trees, rocks, waters, and green slopes stood out with marvellous
precision of outline, as if cut with a keen knife. No fringe of haze
surrounded them, as in a drought or as in the evening when the air
is filled with the shimmering of the day dust which follows the sun's
chariot in his course round the world.

Every object, great and small, seemed magnified to welcome Pierre
Philibert, who was up betimes this morning and out in the pure air
viewing the old familiar scenes.

With what delight he recognized each favorite spot! There was the
cluster of trees which crowned a promontory overlooking the St. Lawrence
where he and Le Gardeur had stormed the eagle's nest. In that sweep of
forest the deer used to browse and the fawns crouch in the long ferns.
Upon yonder breezy hill they used to sit and count the sails turning
alternately bright and dark as the vessels tacked up the broad river.
There was a stretch of green lawn, still green as it was in his
memory--how everlasting are God's colors! There he had taught Amelie to
ride, and, holding fast, ran by her side, keeping pace with her flying
Indian pony. How beautiful and fresh the picture of her remained in his
memory!--the soft white dress she wore, her black hair streaming over
her shoulders, her dark eyes flashing delight, her merry laugh rivalling
the trill of the blackbird which flew over their heads chattering
for very joy. Before him lay the pretty brook with its rustic bridge
reflecting itself in the clear water as in a mirror. That path along
the bank led down to the willows where the big mossy stones lay in the
stream and the silvery salmon and speckled trout lay fanning the water
gently with their fins as they contemplated their shadows on the smooth,
sandy bottom.

Pierre Philibert sat down on a stone by the side of the brook and
watched the shoals of minnows move about in little battalions, wheeling
like soldiers to the right or left at a wave of the hand. But his
thoughts were running in a circle of questions and enigmas for which he
found neither end nor answer.

For the hundredth time Pierre proposed to himself the tormenting enigma,
harder, he thought, to solve than any problem of mathematics,--for it
was the riddle of his life: "What th