There were many plans to make for the opening of spring. Yet Ralph Destournier would have found it intolerably dull but for the little girl whose name was Rose. He taught her to read--Champlain fortunately had some books in French and Latin. There were bits of old history, a volume of Terence, another of Virgil, and out of what he knew and read he reconstructed stories that charmed her. Most of all she liked to hear about the King. The romances of Henry of Navarre fired her rapidly-awakening imagination. Destournier took several little excursions with the intrepid explorer before the severest of the winter set in. What faith he had in this wonderful new France that was to add so much glory and prosperity to the old world! If its rulers could have but looked through his eyes and had his aims. There was Tadoussac, there was the upper St. Charles, where Jacques Cartier and his men had passed a winter that in spite of the utmost heroism had ended in the tragedy of death. To the south there was a sturdy band of Englishmen trying the same experiment, not merely for their King and country, but also some reward for themselves. Neither were they eager to plant the standard of religion; that was left for Puritans and French missionaries. It seemed to Destournier that the scheme of colonization was hardly worth while. He had not Champlain's enthusiasm--there was much to do for France, and that land had always to be on the defensive with England. Would it not be so here in the years to come? And the Indians would be a continual menace. But there was a whole continent to convert, to civilize. He went back to the times of Charlemagne and the struggles that had brought out a glorious France. And no one had given up the passage to India. Lying westward was a great river, and what was beyond that no one knew. It was the province of man to find out. It was a dull life for a little girl in the winter. Rose almost longed for the garden, even if weeds did grow apace. In the old country Mere Dubray had spun flax and wool, here there was none to spin. She had learned a little work from the Indian women, but she was severely plain. What need of fringes and bead work and laying feathers in rows to be stitched on with a sort of thread made of fine, tough grass? And as for cooking, one had to be economical and make everything with a view to real sustenance, not the high art of cooking, though her peasant life had inducted her into this. The little girl made a playhouse in one corner of the cabin and stood up sticks for Indian children to whom she told over what had been taught her. They blundered just as she had done, but she had a curious patience with them that would have touched one's heart. "What nonsense!" Mere Dubray would exclaim. "It is well enough for men, and priests must know Latin prayers, but this is beyond anything a woman needs. And to be repeating it to sticks----"