the baby, and held it loosely on her knees, with its head to the fire.
When the door shut with a crash, and some small object scurried across
the stone floor, the girl looked out of her retreat with fear. Her
eyelids and lips fell wider apart. She saw a big-headed brownie coming
to the hearth, clad, with the exception of its cap, in the dun tints of
autumn woods. This creature, scarcely more than two feet high, had a
woman's face, of beak-like formation, projecting forward. She was as
bright-eyed and light of foot as any bird. Moving within the inclosure
of the settles, she hopped up with a singular power of vaulting, and
seated herself, stretching toward the fire a pair of spotted seal
moccasins. These were so small that the feet on which they were laced
seemed an infant's, and sorted strangely with the mature keen face above
them. Youth, age, and wise sylvan life were brought to a focus in that
countenance.

To hear such a creature talk was like being startled by spoken words
from a bird.

"I'm Le Rossignol," she piped out, when she had looked at the vagrant
girl a few minutes, "and I can read your name on your face. It's
Marguerite."

The girl stared helplessly at this midget seer.

"You're the same Marguerite that was left on the Island of Demons a
hundred years ago. You may not know it, but you're the same. I know that
downward look, and soft, crying way, and still tongue, and the very baby
on your knees. You never bring any good, and words are wasted on you.
Don't smile under your sly mouth, and think you are hiding anything
from Le Rossignol."