the lighthouse-keeper; and
her granddaughter, Nataline, is her living image; a brown darling of a
girl, merry and fearless, who plays the fife bravely all along the
march of life.

It is good to have some duties in the world which do not change, and
some spirits who meet them with a proud cheerfulness, and some
families who pass on the duty and the cheer from generation to
generation--aristocrats, first families, the best blood.

Nataline the second was bustling about the kitchen of the lighthouse,
humming a little song, as I sat there with my friend Baptiste, snugly
sheltered from the night fury of the first September storm. The sticks
of sprucewood snapped and crackled in the range; the kettle purred a
soft accompaniment to the girl's low voice; the wind and the rain
beat against the seaward window. I was glad that I had given up the
trout fishing, and left my camp on the _Sainte-Marguerite-en-bas_, and
come to pass a couple of days with the Thibaults at the lighthouse.

Suddenly there was a quick blow on the window behind me, as if someone
had thrown a ball of wet seaweed or sand against it. I leaped to my
feet and turned quickly, but saw nothing in the darkness.

"It is a bird, m'sieu'," said Baptiste, "only a little bird. The light
draws them, and then it blinds them. Most times they fly against the
big lantern above. But now and then one comes to this window. In the
morning sometimes after a big storm we find a hundred dead ones around
the tower."

"But, oh," cried Nataline, "the pity of it! I can't get over the pity
of it. The poor little one,--how it must be deceived,--to seek light
and to find death! Let me go out and look for it. Perhaps it is not
dead."

She came back in a minute, the rain-drops shining on her cheeks and in
her hair. In the hollow of her firm hands she held a feathery brown
little body, limp and warm. We examined it carefully. It was stunned,
but not killed, and apparently neither leg nor wing was broken.

"It is a white-throat sparrow," I said to Nataline, "you know the tiny
bird that sings all day in the bushes, _sweet-sweet-Canada, Canada,
Canada_?"

"But yes!" she cried, "he is the dearest of them all. He seems to
speak to you,--to say, 'be happy.' We call him the _rossignol_.
Perhaps if we take care of him, he will get well, and be able to fly
to-morrow--and to sing again."

So we made a nest in a box for the little creature, which breathed
lightly, and covered him over with