"Mam'selle Jeanne, allow me to present my most hearty and sincere congratulations. M. St. Armand insisted if the truth could be evolved it would be found that you belonged to gentle people and were of good birth. And we are all glad it is so. I had the honor of being presented to your father this morning;" and he bowed with respect. "Mademoiselle, I have news that will give thee greatest joy, unless thou hast forgotten old friends in the delight of the new. The 'Adventure' is expected in any time to-day, and M. St. Armand is a passenger. I beg your father to come and dine with him this evening, and if thou wilt not mind old graybeards, we shall be delighted with thy company. There will be my daughter to keep thee in countenance." "M. St. Armand!" Jeanne's face was in an exquisite glow and her voice shook a little. Her father gave a surprised glance from one to the other. M. Fleury laughed softly and rubbed his hands together, his eyes shining with satisfaction. "Ah, Monsieur," he exclaimed, "thou wilt be surprised at the friends Mam'selle Jeanne has in Old Detroit. I may look for thee at five this evening?" They both promised. Then Jeanne began to tell her story eagerly. The day the flag was raised, the after time when she had seen the brave General Wayne, the interest that M. St. Armand had taken in having her educated, and how she had struggled against her wild tendencies, her passionate love of freedom and the woods, the birds, the denizens of the forests. They turned in and out, the soldiers at the Citadel saluted, and here was Pani on the doorstep. "Oh, little one! It seemed as if thou wert gone forever!" Jeanne hugged her foster mother in a transport of joy and affection. What if Pani had not cared for her all these years? There were some orphan children in the town bound out for servants. To be sure, there had been M. Bellestre. Pani did not receive the Sieur Angelot very graciously. Jeanne tried to explain the wonderful things that had happened, but Pani's age and her limited understanding made it a hard task. "Thy mother was dead long ago," she kept saying. "And they will take thee away, little one--" "Then they will take you, too, Pani; I shall never leave you. I love you. For years there was no one else to love. And how could I be ungrateful?" She looked so charming in her eagerness that her father bent over and kissed her. If her mother had been thus faithful! "I shall never leave Detroit, little one. You may take up a sapling and transplant it, but the old tree, never! It dies. The new soil is strange, unfriendly." "Do not tease her," said her father in a low tone. "It is all strange to her, and she does not understand. Try to get her to tell her story of the night you came."