Pani sat out on the cedar plank that made the door-sill, and she was cutting deerskin fringe for next winter's leggings. "Jeanne," she called, "Louis has come to say good-by." Jeanne Angelot came out of the far room with a curious hesitation. Pani had been much worried for fear she was ill, but Jeanne said laughingly that she was only tired. "Why, you run all day like a deer and never complain," was the troubled comment. "Am I complaining, Pani?" "No, Mam'selle. But I never knew you to want to lie on the cot in the daytime." "But I often lie out under the oak with my head in your lap." "To be sure." "I'm not always running or climbing." "No, little one;" with smiling assent. The little one came forward now and leaned against Pani's shoulder. "When I shall come back I do not know--in a year or two. I wonder if you will learn to talk English? We shall all have to be good Americans. And now you must wish me _bon voyage_. What shall I bring you when I come? Beaver or otter, or white fox--" "Madame Reamaur hath a cape of beautiful silver fox, and when the wind blows through it there are curious dazzles on every tip." "Surely thou hast grand ideas, Jeanne Angelot." "I should not wear such a thing. I am only a little girl, and that is for great ladies. And Wenonah is making me a beautiful cape of feathers and quills, and the breast of wild ducks. She thinks Pani cured her little baby, and this is her offering. So I hardly want anything. But I wish thee good luck and prosperity, and a wife who will be meek and obedient, and study your pleasure in everything." "Thank you a thousand times." He held out his hand. Pani pressed it cordially, but Jeanne did not touch it. "The little termagant!" he said to himself. "She has not forgiven me. But girls forget. And in a year or two she will be longing for finery. Silver fox, forsooth! That would be a costly gift. Where does the child get her ideas? Not from her neighborhood nor the Indian women she consorts with. Nor even Madame Ganeau," with an abrupt laugh. Jeanne was rather quiet all that day and did not go outside the palisade. But afterward she was her own irrepressible self. She climbed the highest trees, she swung from one limb to another, she rode astride saplings, she could manage a canoe and swim like a fish, and was the admiration of the children in her vicinity, though all of the southwestern end of the settlement knew her. She could whistle a bird to her and chatter with the squirrels, who looked out of beady eyes as if amazed and delighted that a human being belonging to the race of the destroyer understood their language. She had beaten Jacques Filion for robbing birds' nests, and she was a whole year younger, if anyone really knew how old she was.