that history which England does not rebuke, a pride which is just and
right. It is fitting that we should have a day of commemoration. Far
off in France burns the light our fathers saw and were glad. And we in
Pontiac have a link that binds us to the old home. We have ever given
her proud remembrance--we now give her art and song."

With these words, and turning to his wife, he ended, and cries of "Madame
Madelinette! Madame Madelinette!" were heard everywhere. Even the
English soldiers cheered, and Madelinette sang a la Claire Fontaine,
three verses in French and one in English, and the whole valley rang
with the refrain sung at the topmost pitch by five thousand voices:

"I'ya longtemps que je t'aime,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai."

The day of pleasure done and dusk settled on Pontiac and on the
encampment of soldiers in the valley, a light still burned in the library
at the Manor House long after midnight. Madelinette had gone to bed,
but, excited by the events of the day, she could not sleep, and she went
down to the library to read. But her mind wandered still, and she sat
mechanically looking before her at a picture of the father of the late
Seigneur, which was let into the moulding of the oak wall. As she looked
abstractedly and yet with the intensity of the preoccupied mind, her eye
became aware of a little piece of wood let into the moulding of the
frame. The light of the hanging lamp was full on it.

This irregularity began to perplex her eye. Presently it intruded on her
reverie. Still busy with her thoughts, she knelt upon the table beneath
the picture and pressed the irregular piece of wood. A spring gave, the
picture came slowly away from the frame, and disclosed a small cupboard