At first Pani was very wary with true Indian suspicion. The Sieur Angelot had much experience with these children of the forests and wilderness. He understood their limited power of expansion, their suspicions of anything outside of their own knowledge. But he led her on skillfully, and his voice had the rare quality of persuasion, of inducing confidence. In her French _patois_, with now and then an Indian word, she began to live over those early years with the unstudied eloquence of real love. "Touchas is dead," interposed Jeanne. "But there is Wenonah, and, oh, there is all the country outside, the pretty farms, the houses that are not so crowded. In the spring many of them are whitewashed, and the trees are in bloom, and the roses everywhere, and the birds singing--" She paused suddenly and flushed, remembering the lovely island home with all its beauty. He laughed with a pleasant sound. "I should think there would need to be an outside. I hardly see how one can get his breath in the crowded streets," he answered. "But there is all the beautiful river, and the air comes sweeping down from the hills. And the canoeing. Oh, it is not to be despised," she insisted. "I shall cherish it because it has cherished thee. And now I must say adieu for awhile. I am to talk over some matters with your officers, and then--" there was the meeting with his wife. "And at five I will come again. Child, thou art rarely sweet; much too sweet for convent walls." "Is it unkind in me? I cannot make her seem my mother. Oh, I should love her, pity her!" There were tears in Jeanne's eyes, and her breath came with a great, sorrowful throb. "We will talk of all that to-morrow." "Thou wilt not go?" Pani gave her a frightened, longing look, as if she expected her to follow her father. "Oh, not now. It is all so wonderful, Pani, like some of the books I have read at the minister's. And M. St. Armand has come back, or will when the boat is in. Oh, what a pity to be no longer a child! A year ago I would have run down to the wharf, and now--" Her face was scarlet at the thought. What made this great difference, this sense of reticence, of waiting for another to make some sign? The frank trust was gone; no, it was not that,--she was overflowing with trust to-day. All the world was loveliness and love. But it must come to her; she could not run out to it. There was one black shadow; and then she shivered. She told Pani the story of the morning. The Indian woman shook her head. "She is not a true mother. She could not have left thee." "But she thought she was dying. And if I had died there in the woods! Oh, Pani, I am so glad to live! It is such a joy that it quivers in me from head to foot. I am like my father." She laughed for very gladness. Her mercurial temperament was born of the sun and wind, the dancing waters and singing birds. "He will take thee away," moaned the woman like an autumnal blast. "I will not go, then," defiantly.