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They pushed off in the black darkness, among the fragments of ice that lay along the shore. They crossed the strait in silence, and hid their canoe among the rocks on the island. They carried their stuff up to the house and locked it in the kitchen. Then they unlocked the tower, and went in, Marcel with his shot-gun, and Nataline with her father's old carabine.

And he came into the house with a load of joy and trouble on his soul; for he knew that it is wicked to maim the dead, but he thought also of the value of the ring. My mother Nataline was able to tell when people's souls had changed, without needing to wait for them to speak.

He talked with her very gently and kindly. "Think well, my daughter; think seriously what you do. Is it not our first duty to save human life? Surely that must be according to the will of God. Will you refuse to obey it?" Nataline was trembling a little now. Her brows were unlocked. The tears stood in her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She was twisting her hands together.

Alma and Azilda were married and went away to live, one on the South Shore, the other at Quebec. Nataline was her father's right-hand man. As the rheumatism took hold of him and lamed his shoulders and wrists, more and more of the work fell upon her. She was proud of it. At last it came to pass, one day in January, that Baptiste died.

But Fortin said it must be done, and he knew best. So they took their places in turn, as he grew weary, and kept the light flashing. And Nataline well, there is no way of describing what Nataline did, except to say that she played the fife. She felt the contest just as her father did, not as deeply, perhaps, but in the same spirit. She went into the fight with darkness like a little soldier.

It was stunned, but not killed, and apparently neither leg nor wing was broken. "It is a white-throat sparrow," I said to Nataline, "you know the tiny bird that sings all day in the bushes, sweet-sweet-Canada, Canada, Canada?" "But yes!" she cried, "he is the dearest of them all. He seems to speak to you, to say, 'be happy. We call him the rossignol.

Nataline the second was bustling about the kitchen of the lighthouse, humming a little song, as I sat there with my friend Baptiste, snugly sheltered from the night fury of the first September storm. The sticks of sprucewood snapped and crackled in the range; the kettle purred a soft accompaniment to the girl's low voice; the wind and the rain beat against the seaward window.

Baptiste stepped out to look at the sky. "Come," he cried, returning. "We can stop now, it is growing gray in the east, almost morning." "But not yet," said Nataline; "we must wait for the first red. A few more turns. Let's finish it up with a song." She shook her head and piped up the refrain of the old Canadian chanson: "En roulant ma boule-le roulant En roulant ma bou-le."

Perhaps if we take care of him, he will get well, and be able to fly to-morrow and to sing again." So we made a nest in a box for the little creature, which breathed lightly, and covered him over with a cloth so that he should not fly about and hurt himself. Then Nataline went singing up to bed, for she must rise at two in the morning to take her watch with the light.

The son whom she bore to Marcel Thibault was called Baptiste, after her father, and he is now the lighthouse-keeper; and her granddaughter, Nataline, is her living image; a brown darling of a girl, merry and fearless, who plays the fife bravely all along the march of life.