The canoes came dashing into shore. Men, women, and children ran knee-deep into the water to meet them, and a hundred eager hands were ready to seize their prows and drag them high and dry upon the sandy beach. “Home again! and welcome to Tilly, Pierre Philibert!” exclaimed Lady de Tilly, offering her hand. “Friends like you have the right of welcome here.” Pierre expressed his pleasure in fitting terms, and lent his aid to the noble lady to disembark. Le Gardeur assisted Amélie out of the canoe. As he led her across the beach, he felt her hand tremble as it rested on his arm. He glanced down at her averted face, and saw her eyes directed to a spot well remembered by himself--the scene of his rescue from drowning by Pierre Philibert. The whole scene came before Amélie at this moment. Her vivid recollection conjured up the sight of the inanimate body of her brother as it was brought ashore by the strong arm of Pierre Philibert and laid upon the beach; her long agony of suspense, and her joy, the greatest she had ever felt before or since, at his resuscitation to life, and lastly, her passionate vow which she made when clasping the neck of his preserver--a vow which she had enshrined as a holy thing in her heart ever since. At that moment a strange fancy seized her: that Pierre Philibert was again plunging into deep water to rescue her brother, and that she would be called on by some mysterious power to renew her vow or fulfil it to the very letter. She twitched Le Gardeur gently by the arm and said to him, in a half whisper, “It was there, brother! do you remember?” “I know it, sister!” replied he; “I was also thinking of it. I am grateful to Pierre; yet, oh, my Amélie, better he had left me at the bottom of the deep river, where I had found my bed! I have no pleasure in seeing Tilly any more!” “Why not, brother? Are we not all the same? Are we not all here? There is happiness and comfort for you at Tilly.” “There was once, Amélie,” replied he, sadly; “but there will be none for me in the future, as I feel too well. I am not worthy of you, Amélie.” “Come, brother!” replied she, cheerily, “you dampen the joy of our arrival. See, the flag is going up on the staff of the turret, and old Martin is getting ready to fire off the culverin in honor of your arrival.” Presently there was a flash, a cloud of smoke, and the report of a cannon came booming down to the shore from the Manor House. “That was well done of Martin and the women!” remarked Felix Baudoin, who had served in his youth, and therefore knew what was fitting in a military salute. “'The women of Tilly are better than the men of Beauce,' says the proverb.”