A strong pallor toning up to yellow had been growing from the east to the detriment of the moon. Now a pencil line of pink lay across the horizon, and the general dewiness of objects became apparent. The mountain turned from shadow into perpendicular earth and half-budded trees. Some people were stirring in Montreal, and a dog ran towards the river barking as the boat touched the wharf. XIII. THE CHAPEL OF THE HÔTEL-DIEU. JOUANEAUX, the retainer of the hospital nuns, though used to rising early to feed their pigs and chickens, this time cast his wary glance into the garden while it was yet night. The garden held now no tall growths of mustard, in which the Iroquois had been known to lurk until daylight for victims, but Jouaneaux felt it necessary that he should scan the inclosure himself before any nun chanced to step into it. The Sisterhood’s dependent animals were quartered under the same roof with themselves, according to Canadian custom. Jouaneaux scattered provender before the cocks were fairly roused to their matin duty of crowing; and the sleepy swine, lifting the tips of their circular noses, grunted inquiringly at him without scrambling up through the dusk. Scandal might have attached itself even to these nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu for maintaining so youthful a servitor as Jouaneaux, had not the entire settlement of Montreal known his cause for gratitude towards them and the honest bond which held him devoted to their goodness. He was not the stumpy type of French peasant, but stood tall and lithe, was rosy-faced, and had bright hair like a Saxon’s. A constant smile parted Jouaneaux’s lips and tilted up his nose. He looked always on the point of telling good news. Catastrophe and pain had not erased the up-curves of this expression. So he stood smiling at the pigs while Indian-fighters were gathering from all quarters of Montreal towards the hospital chapel. “Jouaneaux!” spoke a woman’s well-modulated voice from an inner door. “Yes, honored Superior,” he responded with alacrity, turning to Sister Judith de Brésoles, head of the Sisterhood of St. Joseph, to whom he accorded always this exaggerated term of respect. She carried a taper in her hand, its slender white flame casting up the beauty of her stern spiritualized features. Bound at all times to the duty of the moment, whether that duty was to boil herbs for dinner, to ring the tocsin at an Indian alarm, or to receive the wounded and the dying, Sister Brésoles conferred briefly with her servitor. “Jouaneaux, is the chapel in complete readiness?” “Yes, honored Superior; everything is ready.” “The Commandant Dollard has arrived, and he brought his young relative with him to place her in our care.” “His sister who lives on his seigniory?” “Certainly. Could it be any other? His sister Mademoiselle Dollard, therefore--”