"—the whole domain
To some, too lightly minded, might appear
A meadow carpet for the dancing hours."

"Tra-la!" sang Miss Clairville, as she pressed heavily on the folds of a purple cloth skirt which had once done service in the "Grand Duchess," but was now being transformed by hot irons, rows of black braid and gilt buttons into a highly respectable travelling dress.

"I thought at first of giving this old thing away, but see how well it's going to look, after all!"

The Cordova, busy heating an iron on the "drum" which stood in a corner of the room, looked at the skirt and at first said nothing.

"It's too dark for a bride's travelling-dress," she said after a while.

"Do you think so? But not for a dark bride," said the other with an uneasy frown. "Well, I'm not a girl, you see; besides, without a sewing machine you and I could never manufacture an entire costume. I meant to give it to you; in fact, I had it tied up in that bundle once, then I changed my mind—woman's prerogative—and here it is."

"Thank you, but I shouldn't care for it anyhow, purple's not my colour; it looks awful with my kind of hair."

Pauline glanced up coldly at the bleached head bending over the irons.

"Perhaps it does. Well—it's too late now even if you did care for it. I'll wear plenty of white around my neck and down the front; a cascade, jabot effect always suits me."

She wound a white scarf around her as she spoke, and bent an old black hat into a three-cornered shape on top of her head.

"There, my dear, there is the true French face, only you don't know it! If I could take you to my home, you would see—well, you would not see much beyond Henry and his eternal books, though they tell me he reads no more. I'm thinking of an old portrait I resemble."

Miss Clairville now sat on the bed, having relinquished the work of doing over the cloth skirt to her friend.

"Why are you keeping that red and black dress there, the theatre dress?
You will never need that, travelling!"

"No, I suppose not, only——"

Pauline eyed the dress. The family trait of acquisitiveness combined with a love of hoarding was asserting itself, and she could scarcely make up her mind to part with things when the time came. Besides, this dress carried her back to meetings with Ringfield, and again she saw the passionate admiration in his eyes as they talked in whispers on her balcony.

"Oh—a fancy of mine! I look well in it. I wore it when Henry was taken ill with the 'pic'."

With a loud shriek Miss Cordova dropped an iron on the floor.

"What is it now? Quelle bÉtise! Stupid—I wasn't with him! I meant—about that time. But if you want the dress, take it, take it! Mon Dieu! what a state your nerves must be in!"

"I'm much better than when I came here," said Miss Cordova quickly.
"Say, Pauline,—did you know I thought of sending for the children?"

"Your children? To come here?"

"Yes. Now, Pauline, it sounds queer, I know, and worse than anything I've ever done, yet—it isn't as bad as it sounds. But, but—well, I may just as well out with it. Mr. Poussette has proposed!"

"To you?"

Miss Cordova stopped in her work. "Yes. He seems to be serious and I like it here, like him too, so I guess we'll fix it up somehow. Of course his wife's living, but she's not right in her head, so she don't count."

"And your two husbands are alive, but as one drinks and the other was married when he met you, they don't count." Miss Clairville was staring in front of her. "My dear girl—have you never heard of such a thing as bigamy? You're talking nonsense, and you must not allow Mr. Poussette to get you into trouble. You can't marry him, Sara!"

"Of course. I know that. But we are both willing to wait. Schenk can't last long; he's drinking harder than ever from last accounts, and Stanbury—well, perhaps I'd better stop short of saying anything about English swells, but Charlie Stanbury had no right to me in the first instance, and now I'm not going to let the faintest thought of him stop me in my last chance of a home and quiet, peaceful living. Oh—Pauline—I was never the same after I discovered how Stanbury wronged me! Nothing seemed to matter and I went from bad to worse. But since I've been here, I've seen things in a different light, and I'd like to stay here and bring the children away from New York and let them grow up where they'll never hear a word about their father or about me and Schenk."

She spoke with sad conviction, her eyes filling, her hands trembling as she worked on at Pauline's skirt.

"You'd give up the theatre and all the rest of it, and come and live at
St. Ignace if you could?"

"Indeed I would, Pauline. Indeed, indeed I would."

"This is too droll! For here am I, pining to get away and be free of this place for ever! But that's because I belong here."

"Yes, and because you have no children to think about. If you had—you'd understand. While Schenk's alive he may find me any day in New York, but I don't believe he'd ever think of looking for me here. My mother'd know how to send the children along, I guess, and they'd always have enough to eat and drink, and fresh air and a place to play in, and I'm sure Mr. Poussette would be kind to them. You know he's a funny-talking man, but he's got a real good heart, and Maisie and Jack might have a good time here."

"Yes, I know, but——" Miss Clairville's aristocratic and sophisticated side was dubious.

"But what? It's all very well for you, just making a fresh start, getting married and going to Europe and wanting to see a little more of the world than the Champlain House and St. Ignace, but I've had enough of the world—too much! I want to bring up my children honest, honest and respectable, and I can't do it, Pauline, in one room on Sixth Ave. Maisie, now, wants to be out in the streets every evening; she'd rather—than stay with me at the theatre even."

"How old is Maisie?" asked Miss Clairville suddenly.

"Why, she's most eleven years of age, I reckon. Let's see! I met Stanbury in—seventy-seven; Maisie—yes, she's just eleven, and Jack's nine and half. Say—wasn't it a good thing that I didn't have any family to Schenk?"

"How can you be so very vulgar!" said Miss Clairville with a curling lip. "But I suppose it was a good thing—the Will of God—according to Father Rielle. Eleven! And Angeel's nine. Nearly ten."

"Angeel? Who's she? You don't mean to tell me that you——"

"What do you mean?" said Miss Clairville fiercely. "What right have you to imagine such things? I'll tell you some day about Angeel, but just now I prefer to discuss something pleasant. We will resume our packing, my dear. Here is this blanket coat. What am I to do with it?"

"Give it away, of course. You'll never wear it again, Pauline, where you're going!"

"I know I shan't," replied Miss Clairville, compressing her lips as she regarded with a critical eye the antiquated wine-red garment adorned with a white sash, and tuque to correspond. "But I look so well in this, too!"

"If you don't want it, let me have it for Maisie. Why—it would be just the thing for her, running around here all winter! Say, Pauline—ain't it funny to think she's the child of an English swell? Stanbury's from a real good family, I can tell you. I guess your Mr. Hawtree would be likely to know all about him. You might ask him. Then there's this white evening dress. My—it's dirty enough, goodness knows! It ought to be French cleaned, but who's to do it in this out-of-the-way place? Here are a lot of roses falling out of it—do they belong to it?"

"That's my Camille dress. The roses go around the skirt—see?—in garlands: same around the waist and on the hair. I might turn it into a peignoir, I suppose. But I think I will give it to you, Sara; you can keep it till Maisie grows up and do it—how do you say?—do it over for her. Is she fair or dark?"

"Dark—just like Stanbury. Say, won't you tell me about Angeel now?"

"No, no! O—pour l'amour de Dieu, don't drag her in at this time! Haven't I enough to worry me? What shall I do if Edmund breaks out again? I haven't seen him all day."

Miss Cordova was very thoughtful for an instant.

"Seems to me you ought to've had more under-clothes," she said solemnly, and Pauline laughed. "And what you have got are far too plain. My—the ones I saw just before I came away from New York! Say, Pauline—there was twenty-five yards of lace, honest, to one nightgown!"

"Was there? At Sorel we were not allowed one yard; frilly things, and too much lace and ribbons are the mark of bad women. Did you ever hear that?"

"I guess my mother held some notions like those. She used to say—quality was the thing, and was never satisfied till she got the best lawn, soft as silk, but she never had much trimming on them. Cut plain and full, was almost always her directions. Well, now—yes, I guess you'll have to wait till you go to Paree before you replenish that side of your wardrobe. Is your Mr. Hawtree free with his money?"

"Yes, yes!" rejoined Pauline hurriedly. The fact being that after the initial flourish and purchase of a few pieces of jewellery and other trinkets Crabbe had tightened his purse-strings, as it were, not from miserliness, but because it was necessary to use caution until they reached London, when larger sums would be paid over on due recognition of his identity. "Free enough for the present. As for me, I have saved nothing, nothing! How could I, with this need for ready money hanging over me? So I do not like to ask too much, just now, and, like a man, he provides me with diamond earrings while I lack proper shoes and an umbrella."

"Take mine!" said Miss Cordova earnestly. "It's real silk and it won't matter if there's an 'S' on the handle. It was his—Stanbury's."

"My dear girl," cried Pauline, "I couldn't! You'll need it yourself.
See—it's silver mounted and valuable!"

"I know it, and that's why I want you should have it. We've been good friends, Pauline, even if there is a difference in our education, and I'd like to give you some little thing. Do please take the umbrella."

All Miss Clairville's latent womanliness sprang to the surface as she jumped off the bed and enfolded her friend in a warm embrace.

"God knows, you will never be forgotten by me, Sara! We've struggled together too long for that. You have a sweet temper and a kind heart, and le bon Dieu takes note of that. I wish now you could marry Mr. Poussette, for I see that you'll miss me when I'm gone, and that's not a bad idea about your children. I hope I'll never have any; I'd be afraid, I'd be afraid. Well, I'll accept the umbrella then, in memoriam if you like. And you take the white dress, and these long yellow gloves, and this sash for Maisie, and here's a bijou imitation watch and chain for Jack—eh? What's the matter?"

Miss Cordova leant heavily on her friend.

"They are calling us," she said.

"Who are?"

"I don't know. Listen! Some one's wanted. It's me. It's me.
Perhaps Schenk's come! Pauline, what shall I do?"

"Absurd! No one can get here; you forget the roads and the snow.
Schenk? He is miles away!"

"Then it's for you. Yes. They're coming up. Listen—it is you,
'Ma'amselle Clairville,' I hear them say!"

"But why be so alarmed?" cried Pauline, and she threw open the door.

Antoine Archambault and Poussette stood outside.

"Your brother the seigneur is dying, mademoiselle," said Poussette, "and desires to see you at once. There is no time to lose."

"What is it?" asked Miss Cordova, not comprehending the foreign tongue, and they told her.

Miss Clairville's face changed. She trembled visibly, made the sign of the cross—so potent is habit, so strong are traditions—but uttered nothing.

"She is ill!" said Miss Cordova, and she led her friend to a chair.

"No, no, I am not ill. But I do not want to go. Je ne le veux pas.
I do not wish at all to go. I will not go, Sara!"

"It's hard, I guess," said the other woman sympathetically, "but it's natural he should want to see you before he dies. Of course, she'll go, Mr. Poussette, and I'll go with her."

"No, no!" said Pauline, starting up, "if I go it must be alone. But why should I go?"

She looked piteously from one to the other. "What good can I or anyone do to him if he is dying? Perhaps there is some mistake."

Antoine spoke in voluble French in accompaniment to Poussette's gestures, and at the words she drooped appallingly.

"Come, Pauline, perhaps it will not be so terrible after all. You were going to visit him this week anyway."

"I know, I know, but this is different, dreadful, startling. It makes me so—I cannot describe. Who is with him? Only Mlle. Poussette! Oh, why—why? It will spoil my marriage, Sara; perhaps it will prevent my marriage!"

"Nothing of the kind! No, no. You will be married the sooner, I daresay. Where is Mr. Hawtree? Why don't he come up and talk to you?"

"He is being driven with Alexis Tremblay to the station! A train may pass through this morning."

Pauline now recollected that he had gone to Montreal to make final preparations for the wedding; among other things, the drawing up of an antiquated contract according to the mixed law of the Province. A sudden wish woke in her to run away and join him and so evade the painful scene which must ensue if she obeyed her brother's commands.

"Death's a dreadful thing anyway, I guess," remarked Miss Cordova to fill in the silence, touching Pauline's thick loops of hair as she spoke. "I just know how you feel."

"Mon Dieu—be quiet, Sara! It isn't his death I mind so much as his dying. Do you not see—he will make me promise, he will bother me into something; dying people always do—I can't explain. If he would just die and have done with it!"

Even the men felt the unusual distress of mind which prompted this outburst of selfish candour, and Miss Cordova drew away.

"Seems to me your brother's in the hands of the Lord and I guess He's mightier than you are. My mother's a New England woman and was always afraid about my going on the stage, and I suppose I've gone wrong some, but I couldn't, like you, go back on a poor, dying creature. Say, Pauline, hadn't you better see a clergyman? Where's that young man? Where's Mr. Ringfield?"

"I do not require his services, thank you. But yes—you mean well. If I'm anything, I'm a Catholic, my dear—and now take all these things and put them away. I think I shall never marier with anyone in this world. I must go, I suppose. Antoine will drive, and I shall go alone."

Miss Cordova silently moved about the small room, not sharing in the gloomy views of the prospective bride, for she carefully went on packing the scanty trousseau which included badly mended lingerie, the red dinner dress, and three gay satin waists bought by Crabbe in the shops of St. Laurent, Main Street, one of canary and black lace, another of rose colour, and a third of apple-green. There were veils enough to stock a store, ties, collars, ribbons, small handkerchiefs and showy stockings in profusion, with a corresponding dearth of strong sensible clothing. The trousseau of Pauline was essentially French in its airiness; its cheap splendours attested to one side of her peculiar character and the sturdier and more sensible attributes of the belle Canadienne were for the time obliterated. The blanket coat and tuque and the Camille dress were tied up by Miss Cordova for Maisie, and within half an hour Pauline had departed with Antoine, and the others lapsed to the unsettled calm which overtakes a community when it is known that the inevitable must shortly occur. That unpleasant negative condition of waiting for a death was now shared by all at Poussette's as the news spread through St. Ignace. Father Rielle was seen to drive away, and Dr. Renaud was already at the Manor House, but Ringfield, shut up in his own room, reading and pondering, heard nothing of the matter for several hours. However, Poussette and Miss Cordova, to relieve tedium, went into the kitchen, where, secure from both Stanbury and Schenk, the ex-actress took a lesson in cooking, by tea-time producing pancakes so excellent that they rivalled if not excelled those of her instructor. Indeed, with this happily met couple, time flew by on feathered wings. Miss Cordova was quick on her feet, bright in her talk, and her vivacity and grace charmed the susceptible Frenchman, too long accustomed to the shrinking nervous figure of the absent Natalie. She stood on chairs and renewed her youth, looking into tins and boxes and bringing to light jams and biscuits the host had forgotten. She sang snatches of Offenbach and Verdi, she beat the eggs while Poussette made up his fire, and when he squeezed her hand or put his fat arm around her waist she did not prudishly push him away, but, gently resisting, rebuked him in such affectionate terms that he politely restrained those damaging caresses. In short, she managed Poussette instead of being persuaded by him, and this in itself pleased her and restored her self-respect; her previous relations with Stanbury and Schenk suffered by comparison, and if she secretly hoped for the death or removal of Mme. Poussette it was with soft womanly compunction and pity, and with stern resolves not to overstep the mark of purity.

So—in this poor, obscure, half-educated soul, this Guinevere of lowly life, burnt the flame of natural goodness. Ignorant of ritual, she had long ago compiled a prayer for herself which ran; "O God—I wasn't a good girl, and I haven't been a good woman, but I've tried to be a good mother. Help me to be a Holy Saint after I die. Amen."