Jeanne laughed. She looked very sweet and charming in her blue and white frock made in a plain fashion, for it did not seem becoming in her to simulate the style of the great ladies. A soft, white kerchief was drawn in a knot about her shoulders, showing the shapely throat that was nearer ivory than pearl. In the knot she drew a few violets. Head gear she usually disdained, but now she put over her curls a dainty white cap that made a delicious contrast with the dark rings nestling below the edge. A pretty, lissome girl, with a step so light it would not have crushed the grass under her feet, had there been any. "There seems a great stir in the town," she said. They had turned into St. Anne's street and were going toward the church. "The new Governor General Hull is to come in a few weeks, and the officers have word to look him up a home, for governors have not lived in Detroit before. No doubt there will be fine times among the Americans." "And there flies a white flag down at the river's edge--has that something to do with it?" "Oh, the boat came in last evening. It is one of the great men up at the North, I think in the fur company. But he has much influence over the Indian tribes, and somehow there is a whisper that there may be disaffection and another union such as there was in Pontiac's time, which heaven forbid! He is called the White Chief." "The White Chief!" Jeanne stopped short in a maze of astonishment. "That has nothing to do with thee," said the priest. He preferred her interest to run in another channel. "But--I was on his island. I saw his wife and children, you remember. Oh, I must see him--" "Not now;"--and her guide put out his hand. "Oh, no," and she gave a short laugh. "As if I would go running after a strange man; a great chief! But he is not an Indian. He is French." "I do remember, yes. There seems a great commotion, as if all the ships had come in. The winter was so long and cold that business is all the more brisk. Here, child, pay a little attention to where you are going. There is a lack of reverence in you young people that pains me." "Pardon me, father." Jeanne knelt on the church steps and crossed herself. She had run up here in the dark the first night she had been back in Detroit, just to kneel and give thanks, but she had told no one. Then she walked decorously beside him. There was the Chapel of Retreat, a room where the nuns came and spent hours on their knees. They passed that, going down a wide hall. On one side some young girls sat doing fine embroidery for religious purposes. At the end a kind of reception room, and there were several people in this now, two priests and three woman in the garb of Ursuline nuns. Jeanne glanced around. A sort of chill crept over her. The room was bare and plain except a statue of the Virgin, and some candles and crucifixes. Nearly in the center stood a table with a book of devotions on it.