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To this the Indian mother said, however: “To please yourself is a great thing, but to please others is better; and so you will stay here till you can walk back to the Portage, M’sieu’ Julien.”

“Well, I’ve never been so comfortable,” he said–“never so happy. If you don’t mind the trouble!”

The Indian woman nodded pleasantly, and found an excuse to leave the room. But before she went she contrived to place near his elbow one of the scraps of paper on which Pauline had drawn his face, with that of Manette. It brought a light of hope and happiness into his eyes, and he thrust the paper under the fur robes of the couch.

“What are you doing with your life?” Pauline asked him, as his eyes sought hers a few moments later.

“Oh, I have a big piece of work before me,” he answered eagerly, “a great chance–to build a bridge over the St. Lawrence, and I’m only thirty! I’ve got my start. Then, I’ve made over the old Seigneury my father left me, and I’m going to live in it. It will be a fine place, when I’ve done with it, comfortable and big, with old oak timbers and walls, and deep fireplaces, and carvings done in the time of Louis Quinze, and dark-red velvet curtains for the drawing-room, and skins and furs. Yes, I must have skins and furs like these here.” He smoothed the skins with his hand.

“Manette, she will live with you?” Pauline asked.

“Oh no, her husband wouldn’t like that. You see, Manette is to be married. She told me to tell you all about it.”

He told her all that was to tell of Manette’s courtship, and added that the wedding would take place in the spring.

“Manette wanted it when the leaves first flourish and the birds come back,” he said, gayly; “and so she’s not going to live with me at the Seigneury, you see. No, there it is, as fine a house, good enough for a prince, and I shall be there alone, unless–“

His eyes met hers, and he caught the light that was in them before the eyelids drooped over them and she turned her head to the fire. “But the spring is two months off yet,” he added.

“The spring?” she asked, puzzled, yet half afraid to speak.

“Yes, I’m going into my new house when Manette goes into her new house–in the spring. And I won’t go alone if–“

He caught her eyes again, but she rose hurriedly and said: “You must sleep now. Good-night.” She held out her hand.

“Well, I’ll tell you the rest to-morrow–to-morrow night, when it’s quiet like this, and the stars shine,” he answered. “I’m going to have a home of my own like this–ah, bien sur, Pauline.”

That night the old Indian mother prayed to the Sun. “O great Spirit,” she said, “I give thanks for the Medicine poured into my heart. Be good to my white child when she goes with her man to the white man’s home far away. O great Spirit, when I return to the lodges of my people, be kind to me, for I shall be lonely; I shall not have my child; I shall not hear my white man’s voice. Give me good Medicine, O Sun and great Father, till my dream tells me that my man comes from over the hills for me once more.”