audience for her. When Melanie was

sure of a sympathetic audience, she was very fond of talking. Pirates were her favorite theme; and, oddly enough, her belief in pirates was to play a part in the adventures of the day. She had heard all about pirates from her own father and from Father Henri; these two, having all the weird legends of the coast at their tongues' ends, liked to tell them to each other, and would sit by the firelight recalling them until far into the night. The younger children always grew restless or sleepy and had to be put to bed, but Melanie remained spellbound to the end. The pine-knots which sprang into flame on the hearth did not kindle more quickly or more vividly than her thoughts, and the stories came to the ears of Victor Paul in even more stirring form than if he had stayed awake by night to hear them. The world of mystery and tradition had become the world in which Melanie lived; for once, after the story-tellers had risen to go to bed, Antoine had said that undoubtedly there still were pirates lurking around the coast, and Father Henri, in an odd voice, had said, "Yes, yes, pirates of many kinds," and since then Melanie had been on the watch to find one in the marsh.

She had just finished a story, and its climax hushed her. She lifted her paddle, and was letting her boat drift forward of its own impulse, when she heard a distinct groan.

Her heart stood still and then gave a great bound. Her story was completing itself; her face turned white, but her eyes shone. "Victor Paul," she whispered tremulously, "without doubt it is a pirate, but he is wounded, so you have not the need to be afraid."

Victor Paul was not as afraid as Melanie. He stared at her curiously, but with his usual composure, as she paddled toward the sound.

Is it that some one has been hurt?" she asked aloud in her very best French, as quaint and old-fashioned and stately as Lafitte himself may have spoken.

The answer was another groan. Then the pirogue turned a tiny curve in the channel, and she saw a man stretched on one of the silvery logs which lie stranded and bleaching through the marsh. He opened his eyes, and she was about to paddle away in a panic of fright when he

66

closed them again. His livid face touched her pity. Oh!" she cried out, "what is it that has happened? Let me have the privilege of helping you !"

He looked at her again. "I'm afraid you can't do anything," he said in English. "A moccasin has bitten me on the arm." Then he tried to smile, as if he realized how tiny and helpless she was. "I took its log," he finished in a vague murmur, his mind drifting away from her.

His injured arm lay stretched out from its shoulder. It was inflamed to an angry purple, and swollen frightfully. He had torn the clothing from it to make a ligature, but now the knotted bandage was thrown aside.

Melanie looked at it and nodded her head with critical judgment, like an old physician. "I see it," she said, falling into English, and speaking with a soft-slurred accent and a caressing voice. "Why didn t you suck dose poison out of it?"

"I tried to," he answered, summoned back by her voice. "I reckon it would have done me up before now if I hadn't."

"Oh, truly," Melanie said, "it might be much more bad. Me, I think it is good luck dat I come to place de mud on it, like papa did on our dog-oh, but our dog, he make much more cry dan you, an' he come out, oh perfect !" She stepped lightly from the pirogue on to the quaking marsh, scooped a dripping handful of mud from the edge of the channel, and spread it like a poultice over his arm. "Father Henri, he say dat de cure is toujours-h-always-very close to de trouble," she went on, reaching for another handful. "It is very strange. Me, I think if I was a snake an' mad at somebuddy, I would go where dere wasn't no mud."

The pirogue began to sway, and the blankly questioning gaze of Victor Paul appeared above the side. "You stay where you belong, Veector Paul," Melanie cried. "If you stir yourse'f, you goin' to be drown in de water, or at de leas' bit by doze snake."

"What's that?" the man asked, dully. "Your dog?"

66

He

My little brudder, yas-my little brudder in de bottom of de pirogue. had not de invita-cion to come along, but he know how to keep himse'f still. He keep still, oh, h-always."

The man groaned between his teeth. "I'm afraid this mud of yours isn't much force against a moccasin-bite," he said; "and then the fever dries it out as fast as you put it on.”

"Truly," answered the little nurse; "but now that I have enough of mud on it, I begin to pour water over it an' keep it wet. Mud an' water, dey is good-so good-for doze snake-bite."

It did not occur to her that she ought to tell any one else that she had found a man suffering and in danger of his life there in the marsh. When a pirate hid himself, he had his own reasons for doing so, she felt sure, and all that a good Samaritan could do was to try to ease his pain. As for him, there had been a haze over all his thoughts. His blood, thickened by poison, crept sluggishly through his brain, and he was slow in realizing that she might be more useful as a messenger than as a nurse. The steady, languorous patter of her voice brought him gradually to attention.

"De bite was through your coat, wasn't it?" she asked. "Den dat's very little. Father Henri, he say a snake-bite don't never kill if de snake has de luck to bite through your close. An' dat dog of us," she went on, meeting his gaze with a friendly and confident smile, "you had ought to have see dat dog! De bite was in his throat, so it hurt him very much to cry, yet he made much more noise dan you, an' now he's all right."

The pain, and the unlooked-for sweetness of her certainty, and many struggling thoughts besides, showed in the sick man's eyes. His breath was hard and slow. "Do you reckon I'll get over it?" he gasped; and then, as if he did not want the answer, "Where did you come from, anyway, into this wilderness of marsh?"

"Oh," Melanie said, "I come toujours. I know de way, an' I look h-always to find somebuddy. Father Henri, he say you h-always hide in de marsh." She leaned a little closer. "I was so scare," she admitted in a half-whisper. "I knew it was a pirate when I heard you groan, an' I was so scare, but I had to see what you was like."

A pirate!" he repeated. Then he looked off among the reeds and smiled a little, as if the idea were not altogether strange to him. "Do you know all those

old stories too?" he asked. "Who tells them to you? Who tells you about Lafitte and Dominick and Scott?"

"Father Henri," she said; "Father Henri an' my papa; but Father Henri knows de most. He knows more about pirates dan anybuddy in de world.”

"Does he know more "-the man's voice was very thick; he hesitated and kept looking off among the reeds-" does he know more than Henry Gower?"

"But!" Melanie cried in surprise," dat's Father Henri-'Enry Gower."

The sick man struggled to lift himself on his uninjured arm. "Henry Gower a priest!" he cried. "But where is his wife?"

"Dead," Melanie answered. She did not wonder that he knew about these people—a pirate might be supposed to know everything. "Yas," she went on, "dey had a so-bad son, an' he broke deir hearts. It was so sad dat Madame Gower die, an' den Father Henri he study to be a priest, an' he say, I hear him say to my papa, dat de peace of God it take away all de pain, de terreeb' pain of dat son."

He dropped back on to the log and threw his well arm across his face. Melanie heard him sob harshly.

"What is it?" she cried; "have you more pain?"

"What do people say that his son did?" he asked.

"But! He was imprison'! An' when de time was out, he didn't come home."

There was silence for a moment, and then the slow, thick voice from the log asked again, "What had he done?"

"I hear my papa say he ain't done not'ing," Melanie declared. "My papa say he got mad at Colonel Wash Crutherd's, up at Shieldsboro', because de Colonel was a so-cruel man, an' when de Colonel beat a horse mos' to death one day, de son of Father Henri he beat de Colonel, an' de Colonel kep' a grudge. Dat's all, except dat de Colonel laid a trap an' made out dat de son of Father Henri had broke into his store. Lots of people didn't believe it, but dey imprison' him jus' de same."

"And yet," the sick man urged, “you say he was a 'so-bad son.'"

"Ah," the child explained, "because he didn't come back when de prison set him free-because he lef' his pore papa

an' mamma so sad. People say it mus' be dat he was bad after all or he couldn't have been a so-cruel son when dey love him so much. Everybody but my papa say dey reckon he did break in dat store."

"But!" she answered, gravely; "he talks not. Dat's all right."

"Yes," he moaned bitterly, "everything's all right." By a great effort he lifted himself to his elbow and confronted her. His face was full of pain and fear,

"But no! Father Henri say his son is dead. He say if he wasn't dead he wouldn't stay away."

“And did nobody think of his pride?" the man demanded. "Did nobody think what it was to him to come back where he had been disgraced, and how he put it off from day to day and year to year, and how it grew harder all the time? Did nobody think that perhaps he came near by and couldn't bear it, and went away again? Didn't even his father think of his side of it-of how he felt?"

"I dunno," Melanie answered in bewilderment. 66 Dey say Father Henri hunt for him and hunt for him, an' it was only when he give up an' say his son mus' be dead dat he find peace."

His

The man on the log closed his eyes, and without their evidence of life he looked like a dead man who had passed through a long, uncared-for illness. matted hair fell back from a sunken brow. The hollows in his cheeks led to high cheek-bones and great eye-sockets in which his closed eyes had a waxen whiteness. "Dead," he murmured; and the fitness of the word made the little girl shiver-" how much better so!" His hand stirred once or twice with nervous indecision. Suddenly he looked full in Melanie's face. "I'm going away from here," he said. "You needn't think I'm too weak to go away from here, for I shall go, and you've got to promise not to tell anybody that you found me. Cross your self and promise, cross yourself and swear that you won't tell."

A flush spread over Melanie's brown cheeks and up to the roots of her hair. "It would not be honorabl'," she cried "it would not be fair to tell dat you are here when your right arm is so swell dat you could not fight. But you mus' not go while you are so sick. I shall come every day and take care of you, an' when you are well, den you can go away."

"And that baby in the pirogue-won't he tell?"

call nobody to give me absolution," he cried.

Melanie's hands shook so that the water spilled, and when she spoke, her words. shook too. "You're not goin' to die," she said. "I shall come all de days till you get cure."

"Won't you be afraid?" he asked," and won't your people wonder where you are?" "Dat's all right. I ain't scare of you, and my mamma never trouble herse'f about me. She has Hortense to he'p her wid de work. Hortense has de way to do things right, an' me, I have de way to do dem wrong.'

"Not-not always," he sobbed. The peace which there was about the child reached to the suffering of his mind and soothed it. He dropped back and lay quite silent and motionless while Melanie kept patiently pouring the water over his

arm.

Victor Paul, poor, forgotten morsel of humanity, sighed softly and regularly in the bottom of the pirogue. The brilliant slanting sunshine fell full upon him through the narrow opening of the channel, but he had kept so still that the fate of all good babies had overtaken him, and he was fast asleep. A breath of air stole in from the creek and stirred among the rushes, as if time were stealing audibly past the sick outcast, the sleeping baby, and the child.

"Melanie! Melanie !" It was Antoine Dolbert's voice coming clear and resonant across the marsh.

Melanie started to her feet and then sat down again. Never since she was the size of Victor Paul had her father come to search for her. The sick man looked up in alarm. His perceptions had been wandering in a maze of physical torture. "Has something happened to you?” hẹ asked.

"Not'ing," Melanie answered, "only my papa call."

"Is he coming here? Go to him! Don't let him come here and find me.”

"He's not comin' here.

He don't know

de way. Nobuddy know de way but me. Dere ain't not❜ing here to come for but de lilies. I smelled dem one time when I was paddling down de creek, an' I found my way in where dey grow. Nobuddy else has de time to know if de lilies bloom in de marsh."

"Melanie! Melanie!"

Victor Paul did not waken when she stepped into the pirogue. She paddled away with slow, regretful strokes, and kept turning to look back. The sunlight glittered upon her through the reeds, and the man followed her with his big dark eyes, believing that after the marsh closed behind her he should never look into a human face again. He trusted her prom

"But I can't, for if I go while he is dere, den he may see de way." She looked around her as if she were hopelessly questioning the gray-green reeds. and the attenuated blossoms of the lilies. 'Oh, when I t'ink about goin' off an' leavin' you, it make me want to tell my papa. You don't know how very fond he is of pirates. He would be very sad if he knowed dat all your friends had lef' you, an' a snake had bite your arm. He would take you home, an' he wouldn't tell the people at de ferry who you was."

He pushed it all away from him with a motion of the hand. "Tell nobody," he whispered. "I want to be left alone."

"Melanie! Melanie!" The call was sounding further up the creek; she knew that her father had given up finding her and was paddling back toward home. There was a note of urgence that was almost despairing in his voice, and the feeling that something terrible had hap pened brought her to her feet again.

"I mus' go," she said. "I won't tell nobuddy if you don't want me to, and I'll come back right soon. I'll come back wid some bread faw you-oh, you don't know how somesing to eat will make you strong!"

"I'm feeling pretty strong already," he declared, wondering if she would believe him in spite of his thick, faint voice; "and I don't want anything to eat, so don't come back to-night; and don't be surprised if I'm gone when you come to-morrow. My shipmates, you know, from the pirate ship, they might find me in the night; so good-by."

"Good-by," Melanie said; "but I shall come jus' de same to bring somesing to eat, and make myself sure. Doze pirate, dey care not much for de sick." She stood hesitant a moment, still feeling it wrong to leave him alone. Good-by," she said again, in a trembling voice.

slip into the water, praying for strength to get beyond her island before he drowned.

In a moment she came to a curve in the channel, waved her hand to him, and disappeared. After that her pirogue wound so swiftly through the marsh that Antoine Dolbert was still in sight when she came out into the creek. Father Henri was with him in the skiff, and both of them kept looking to right and left as Antoine rowed away. They were startled when she called to them. Her father turned the skiff and came back to meet her, and, to her surprise, he did not ask her where she had been.

"Veector Paul is lost," he called out; we can't find Veector Paul !"

"But he is here!" Melanie answered. She prodded Victor Paul and made him sit up in the boat. "He had the idea to come with me," she explained, as the two boats slipped together. "I did not want him, me, but he had say to himse'f, 'I go.'"

She beamed at the two anxious men, feeling that fate had been kind to save her from personal questions in this way; the result was disappointing. Victor Paul rubbed his eyes and smiled blissfully, but Antoine Dolbert frowned. "Oh, Melanie, Melanie! didn't you have the sense to know dat your mamma would be scare?" he asked. "De las' anybuddy see him he was goin' toward de creek, an' den when your mamma look for him he wasn't nowhere. When I come back from bringing Father Henri, I find your mamma been crying an hour wid de fear dat he is drown. Look like you had ought to stay home sometime, Melanie, an' he'p take care of all doze children."

"I was taking care of him in de pirogue," Melanie explained.

"Ah!" Antoine said, in such a tone as his wife might have used. "Den I mus' tell you dis is de las' day you have de

pirogue. It is right at dis hour, yas, you begin stayin' at home an' workin' like your mamma an' Hortense."

A sort of horror showed in Melanie's face. At any other time it would have touched her father, but not now. "Papa," she cried, "I couldn't stay h-always round de house-I couldn't stay dare h-always!" "Hortense stays," her father declared, sternly, "an' dat is where you mus' stay, or I shall no more call you my little saint."

Then Melanie broke into tears.

Victor Paul had been patting her with his fat hands and babbling excitedly. He understood that she was in trouble; he was grateful to her, and he wanted to show it in some way. He looked appealingly at his father and at Father Henri, and pointed toward the marsh. Then he patted Melanie again, and gazed at her

accusers.

"The child wants to say something," Father Henri noticed. Do you know what it is, Melanie?"

Melanie shook her head, and tried to push Victor Paul down from the edge of the pirogue, which he was tilting dangerously.

Father Henri leaned from the skiff and took the child into his arms. "What is it, little man?" he said.

Victor Paul's face brightened. "Man!" he echoed with startling clearness, pointing a short, fat finger towards the marsh. It was the first word he had ever spoken in his life.

"Man?" cried Antoine Dolbert. "What does he mean, Melanie?"

Melanie sobbed and shook her head, but the baby stretched his arms toward the marsh, gabbling excitedly. "Man !" "Man!" he repeated again and again, with much more that they could not understand.

Antoine grasped Melanie by the shoulders and lifted her up so that he could see her face. "Is there a man in that marsh?" he asked.

Melanie's eyes fell. "Oh, papa, I promised," she murmured; "oh, papa, be good to him!"

there and show us the way," he ordered; "or, no, get into de skiff an' row Father Henri dere, while I take de pirogue an' go home wid Veector Paul. I will come back to see dis pirate." His eyes met Father Henri's. Father Henri's. "Truly," he muttered, "dere are pirate of many kinds still in de world."

He changed places with Melanie, took the baby again into the pirogue, and the two boats parted. Melanie, sitting across from Father Henri, could not bear to look into his face. She wondered if she could ever look any one in the face again— surely she could not meet the eyes of the man in the marsh. "He will be so angry," she murmured, brokenly—“ I promise him not to tell."

"What is this man like?" the priest asked, gently.

She brushed the tears out of her eyes, and looked at him with a sudden realization. "Father Henri," she said, dat man is jus' like you.'

Like me!" he echoed. The broad skiff pushed in among the reeds and parted them, rubbing against each side of the channel as it made its way through the marsh. Father Henri asked no more questions, but his lips stirred, and one nervous hand told the beads upon his rosary. The rushes grated past, and the air grew sweet with the incense of the lilies.

"Ah," Melanie moaned, "I'm so scare of him! He is jus' round dis turn."

Father Henri stepped to the bow. "I will speak to him," he said. He grasped the reeds and pulled the boat round the last curve.

The sick man lay staring at them. Father Henri gave a cry. For an instant he was not a priest, the father of many, but only the father of this one. He stepped from the boat and knelt in the marsh mud beside the log, gathering the ghastly figure up into his arms; and the outcast looked into his eyes, and knew that it was not too late for forgiveness and life and love.

In the silence of their meeting Melanie burst into tears. "It was not me who told him, truly it was not," she sobbed, not guessing that she and her promise. were alike forgotten, and that it was a moment of joy. "Me, I had give my word. I told not. It was dat terreeb'