"What an odd thing that you should have been carried off by Indians and taken to your father's house!" she began. "And this double marriage—though the Church had annulled your mother's. We have heard of the White Chief, but no one could have guessed you were his child. It is said—your mother desires you—" Mam'selle hesitated as if afraid to trench on secret matters, and not sure of the conclusion.
"She wishes me to go into the convent. But I am not like Berthê Campeau. I should fret and be miserable like a wild beast in a cage. If she were ill and needed a nurse and affection, I should be drawn to her. And then, I am not of the same faith."
"O Mam'selle, she doesn't seem like my mother. My father kissed me and held me in his arms at once and my whole heart went out to him. I feel strange and far away from her, and she thinks human love a snare to draw the soul from God. O Mam'selle, when he has made the world so beautiful with all the varying seasons, the singing birds and the blooms and the leaping waters that take on wonderful tints at sunrise and sunset, how could one be shut away from it all? There is so much to give thanks for in the wide, splendid world. It must be better to give them with a free, grateful heart."
"I have had some sorrow, and once I looked toward convent peace with secret longing. But my mother and father said, 'Wait, we both shall need thee as we grow older.' There is much good to be done outside. And one can pray as I have learned. I cannot think human ties are easily to be cast aside when God's own hand has welded them."
"And she sent me to my father. I feel that I belong to him;" Jeanne declared, proudly.
"He is a man to be fond of, so gracious and noble. And his island home is said to be most beautiful."
Jeanne gave an eloquent description of it and the two handsome boys with their splendid mother. Mam'selle wondered that there was no jealousy in her young heart. What a charming character she had! Why had not she taken her up as well, instead of feeling that M. St. Armand's interest was much misplaced? She might have won this sweet child's affection that had been lavished upon an old Indian woman. At times she had hungered for love. Her sister was away, happily married, with babies clinging to her knees, and the sufficiency of a gratified life.
Jeanne was sitting upon a silken covered stool, her round arm daintily reclining on the other's knee. The elder bent over and kissed her on the forehead.
"You belong to love's world," she said.