She had taken no part in this festival of labor for several years. She
moved among the women still in solitude, not one of them feeling at
liberty to draw near her except as she encouraged them. The Abenaquis
were not a polygamous tribe, but they enjoyed the freedom of the
woods. Squaws who had made several experimental marriages since
this young celibate began her course naturally felt rebuked by her
standards, and preferred stirring kettles to meeting her. It was not
so long since the princess had been a hoiden among them, abounding
in the life which rushes to extravagant action. Her juvenile whoops
scared the birds. She rode astride of saplings, and played pranks
on solemn old warriors and the medicine-man. Her body grew into
suppleness and beauty. As for her spirit, the women of the tribe knew
very little about it. They saw none of her struggles. In childhood
she was ashamed of the finer nature whose wants found no answer in
her world. It was anguish to look into the faces of her kindred and
friends as into the faces of hounds who live, it is true, but a lower
life, made up of chasing and eating. She wondered why she was created
different from them. A loyalty of race constrained her sometimes to
imitate them; but it was imitation; she could not be a savage. Then
Father Petit came, preceding Saint-Castin, and set up his altar and
built his chapel. The Abenaqui girl was converted as soon as she
looked in at the door and saw the gracious image of Mary lifted up to
be her pattern of womanhood. Those silent and terrible days, when she
lost interest in the bustle of living, and felt an awful homesickness
for some unknown good, passed entirely away. Religion opened an
invisible world. She sprang toward it, lying on the wings of her
spirit and gazing forever above. The minutest observances of the
Church were learned with an exactness which delighted a priest who had
not too many encouragements. Finally, she begged her father to let