"He will tell you himself to-night when he comes to Bluff Castle," said the older woman, in reply.
"I hope he won't come, Suzanne; he is so strange now, since we have grown up."
"You are strange, too, perhaps. He says you have become proud since you have been going away to school," said Suzanne.
"I am not proud," cried Marie, quickly; "but he frightens me sometimes. He is changed," she continued, in a calmly positive tone.
"Why did the stranger wish to stay with us, Suzanne?" Marie asked, after some minutes of silence.
"I suppose to be near the cliffs," replied Suzanne.
"They will have all Pierre Island carried away some time if père does not ask them to stop pulling down the cliff." Her low, musical laughter rippled from her lips and filled her eyes with brown, warm light. Often a merrier peal reached out to where Len was at work and made him look towards the group.
"It is a wonder that Len is not here helping père," she said, as she saw him standing beside his boat.
"Marie! Marie!" Pierre would sometimes say, without looking up from his work.
This gentle admonishment restrained but little the overflow of healthy good-nature. Suzanne often laughed at the gay words of her young mistress.