“Little one,” he began in a tender, comforting tone, “set your heart at rest. If the good God spares us, there will be many pleasant years together, I hope. I am not going to marry any one, and Ma’m’selle Barbe has a fine young admirer. She doesn’t want an old fellow like me. You can’t understand now, but when you are older I will tell you the whole story. I loved your mother and your grandfather took her away, married her to some one else. That is why you are so dear to me.” “Oh!” she cried, with a depth of feeling that surprised him. “Oh!” Then she dropped down on her knees and put her arms about his neck, and he could feel her heart beat against his breast. He was immeasurably impressed. Could she understand what that meant? When he raised her face it was sweet and grave as that of an older person might have been. Then she said softly. “I shall love you my whole life long. I shall never love any one so dearly.” How did she who had never had any one to love understand affection so well? Perhaps because it is natural to the sex to own something it can adore, and yet the little Renaud girls liked him very much, but there was no such absorption in their regard. Ah, he was her all. They had the natural ties of childhood on which to lavish their love. Barbe—he had never thought of marrying her, though he had seen her grow up to womanhood, and very charming at that. She was for some younger mate, and there were plenty of them. Pretty girls, nor scarcely any girls, went begging in the new countries. They were tempting enough without much _dot_. And that her little heart should be torn by jealousy! He could have smiled, only it seemed pitiful. He pressed her closer, sorry any innuendoes should have been made before her. “Come, dear,” he began tenderly, “we have not finished our walk. Or will I have to carry you?” She sprang up lightly, her face all abloom, though her long lashes still glistened. “Oh, no, no,” smilingly. “But you have carried me—over part of the long portage when I was so tired, and that night when it was dark. Oh, how big and strong you are. There was some one in a book in the old château—I have nearly forgotten, who was strong and brave. Uncle Gaspard, why haven’t you any books? The little ones at the Father’s are so queer, with their short sentences, and the children blunder so. I like best to know about some person. Oh, can’t we all tell that the dog barks and the kitten mews, the cock crows, without reading it in a primer! And—I would like to have a prayer book of my very own.” “I think I have one somewhere about. But I will send to New Orleans for some books the next time the boats go down. People have not had much time for learning thus far.”