“Aren’t we going to the hotel?” inquired Priscilla, her face clouding.

“No; we haven’t enough money to stay there,” answered Jack, starting ahead with René.

The little girl pouted, and shed a few quiet tears to which Desiré wisely paid no attention. Slowly they strolled along the main street, pausing to look in the window of a stationer’s where the books and English magazines attracted Desiré’s eye; stopping to gaze admiringly at the jewelry, china, pictures, and souvenirs attractively displayed in another shop.

“Just see the lovely purple stones!” cried Priscilla, who had recovered her good humor.

“Those are amethysts,” explained Jack. “They come from Cape Blomidon,” adding to Desiré, “I heard that another vein split open this year.”

“Isn’t it strange that the intense cold nearly every winter brings more of the beautiful jewels to light?” commented the girl.

“A kind of rough treatment which results in profit and beauty,” mused Jack.

“Yes; and, Jack, maybe it will be like that with us. Things are hard now, but perhaps soon we’ll find—”

“Some am’thysts?” asked René excitedly.

“Perhaps,” replied Jack, giving Desiré one of his rare sweet smiles.

The stores had been left behind now, and on every hand were green tree-shaded lawns enclosed by carefully trimmed hedges of English hawthorne in full bloom. Desiré exclaimed with rapture over their beauty, and the size and style of the houses beyond them. On a little side street they paused before a small cottage, half hidden in vines.

“This must be the place,” decided Jack, opening the white gate which squeaked loudly as if protesting against the entrance of strangers. The sound brought a woman to the door.

“I’m looking for Simon Denard,” began Jack.

“You’ve come to the right place to find him,” she replied, smiling, as she came toward them and put out one hand to pat René’s head. “Simon Denard is my father. I’m Mrs. Chaisson. Come right in.”

In the small living room to which she led them sat old Simon, propped up with pillows in a big chair.

“So here ye are,” was his greeting, as the children dashed across the floor to his side.

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