colour of the nodding harebells that blossom on the edge of the
woods. She was slight and delicate. The neighbours called her
sickly; and a great doctor from Philadelphia who had spent a summer
at Bytown had put his ear to her chest, and looked grave, and said
that she ought to winter in a mild climate. That was before people
had discovered the Adirondacks as a sanitarium for consumptives.

But the inhabitants of Bytown were not in the way of paying much
attention to the theories of physicians in regard to climate. They
held that if you were rugged, it was a great advantage, almost a
virtue; but if you were sickly, you just had to make the best of it,
and get along with the weather as well as you could.

So Serena stayed at home and adapted herself very cheerfully to the
situation. She kept indoors in winter more than the other girls,
and had a quieter way about her; but you would never have called her
an invalid. There was only a clearer blue in her eyes, and a
smoother lustre on her brown hair, and a brighter spot of red on her
cheek. She was particularly fond of reading and of music. It was
this that made her so glad of the arrival of the violin. The
violin's master knew it, and turned to her as a sympathetic soul. I
think he liked her eyes too, and the soft tones of her voice. He
was a sentimentalist, this little Canadian, for all he was so merry;
and love--but that comes later.

"Where'd you get your fiddle, Jack? said Serena, one night as they
sat together in the kitchen.

"Ah'll get heem in Kebeck," answered Jacques, passing his hand
lightly over the instrument, as he always did when any one spoke of