When she roused again Mère Lunde administered her potions. She made a very wry face over the bitter one. The good mère put another poultice on her throat and spread it well over her chest; rolling her up again like a mummy. She would have laughed if there had not been a great lump in her throat. “I am like a papoose,” she said. “Uncle Gaspard, sit here and tell me some stories.” He would not go away after she had fallen asleep, but wrapped himself in a blanket and leaned his head on the foot of her bed. Now and then she moaned a little, which gave him a pang, and after midnight she grew very restless. The fever was coming on again. Mère Lunde roused her and gave her another potion, and before daylight she had prepared the corn bath again. The fever did not seem to be as obstinate. By noon she was quite comfortable. Father Lemoine brought in the vicar general, who was going back to Ste. Genevieve. This was a great honor, and Mère Lunde brought out some wine that had come from the real vineyards of France. Father Meurin heard the little girl’s story. He had known of Antoine Freneau, indeed, he had performed the first marriage and given the first baptism in the little town. That was in a tent, because there was no church. And the first services had been held in the fields, for the church had been built hardly ten years. “She would be in poor hands if left to her grandfather,” he admitted. “And I hope she will be rightly brought up. If you had a wife, M. Denys.” “I have rambled about so much I have had no time to marry,” he returned rather drily. “But now I shall settle down.” “I hope so. It is what the towns need, steady occupancy. And you will deal rightly with the child and see that she is brought up as a daughter of the Church should be. You are quite sure her mother—” he finished the question with his eyes. “I saw the marriage register in the cathedral at Quebec. Then her mother was taken to France, where she died,” Denys answered. The vicar nodded, satisfied. He repeated the prayer for the recovery of the sick and gave them all a kindly blessing with his adieu. Gaspard Denys fell into a brown study. She was not his child, to be sure. Would it make any difference any time in the future? Ought there to be some woman different from Mère Lunde—bah! it would be years before Renée was grown up. And the little one wanted no one to share his love. He was glad—that would always be an excuse to himself. He never could put any one in the place he had hoped to set Renée Freneau. CHAPTER VI BY THE FIRESIDE Renée mended slowly. She had indeed been very ill. She was so weak that it tired her to sit up among the pillows in her bed. And one day when she insisted upon getting up she dropped over into Mère Lunde’s arms. “Where is all my strength gone to?” she inquired pettishly. “_Pauvre petite_,” it was queer, and the good woman had no science to explain it.