A low breeze was moving almost silently among the trees, bringing an unwonted freshness we could verily taste. Soon we marked the screen of undergrowth, which hid the sun, grow thinner and thinner, until his rays came shining low through a halo of golden leaves, with gleams like to glancing water. Breathless, we hurried on until we swept aside the last veil and found ourselves on the open cliff, overlooking mile beyond mile of dancing water, which the setting sun covered with a trail of glory breaking in ripples on a beach of golden sand, that stretched below the cliff on which we stood. "Oh, the sea! the sea!" I cried, sinking to the ground, overwhelmed by the flood of feeling which broke upon me. It was the promise of a new world of light and safety, after the black, swift river and the sombre forest from which we had escaped. "No, my daughter, not the sea; la Grande Riviere, the St. Lawrence!" said le pere Jean, almost reverently. "Do you wonder these poor Indians worship it?" "Oh, it is blessed! blessed! It means home! It is like to heaven!" I whispered, and then I fell a-crying with very happiness. Presently Lucy touched me on the shoulder. "See! there is Andre!" And below we saw the Indian paddling out into the open. He went cutting through the golden water until he was some distance from the shore, when he stood upright, gently rocking as he balanced, gazing up the river. Suddenly he crouched down, again and made all haste towards us, crying, as he came within call: "Mon pere! Dufour! Dufour! Gabriel Dufour!" "This is fortunate, most fortunate," exclaimed the priest. "It will save us many a weary mile, and perhaps weeks of waiting. Gabriel is a pilot, with one of the best boats on the river, and your way to Quebec is now easy. It could not have fallen out better." "'One of those disarrangements we name Accident,' mon pere?" I said. "No, my daughter; when we are schooled sufficiently to read aright, we name it 'Providence,'" he returned, gravely. We took our places in the canoe once more, and with deep, long strokes she was forced through the current across the mouth of the stream. We disembarked on the farther side, and all made our way out to the end of the low point, which stretched far into the wide river. My disappointment was great when I could make out nothing of the object to which Andre triumphantly pointed, but this the priest pronounced, without hesitation, to be the pilot's boat. "Andre, dry wood," he commanded; and to us he added, "You can help, if you will."