out of its winter desolation. The Etchemin made brooms of hemlock, and
brushed down cobwebs and dust, and laboriously swept the rocky earthen
floor, while the princess, standing upon a scaffold of split log
benches, wiped the sacred picture and set a border of tender moss
around it. It was a gaudy red print representing a pierced heart.
The Indian girl kissed every sanguinary drop which dribbled down the
coarse paper. Fog and salt air had given it a musty odor, and stained
the edges with mildew. She found it no small labor to cover these
stains, and pin the moss securely in place with thorns.

There were no windows in this chapel. A platform of hewed slabs had
supported the altar; and when the princess came down, and the benches
were replaced, she lifted one of these slabs, as she had often done
before, to look into the earthen-floored box which they made. Little
animals did not take refuge in the wind-beaten building. She often
wondered that it stood; though the light materials used by aboriginal
tribes, when anchored to the earth as this house was, toughly resisted
wind and weather.

The Etchemin sat down on the ground, and her mistress on the platform
behind the chancel rail, when everything else was done, to make a
fresh rope of evergreen. The climbing and reaching and lifting had
heated their faces, and the cool salt air flowed in, refreshing
them. Their hands were pricked by the spiny foliage, but they labored
without complaint, in unbroken meditation. A monotonous low singing
of the Etchemin's kept company with the breathing of the sea. This
decking of the chapel acted like music on the Abenaqui girl. She
wanted to be quiet, to enjoy it.

By the time they were ready to shut the door for the night the splash