When they climbed the steep bank, Stone Girl saw open fields and houses in a broad valley. As she azed at the scene something came over her and she stumbled against Otter Boy.

“Guka, Mamma, lean on me,” the child told her. “I will hold you up.”

“Otter Boy, I think I have been here before,” Stone Girl said. “This creek with the boats tied up I have seen and the tall log house ahead. There was also a hill peaked like a sugar loaf. I don’t see it now.” After passing the woods, the peaked hill came into view.

The priest had put on his robe. Now he marched ahead with its skirt flapping. He questioned an old woman they met, and led his charges on. Behind the great log house stood stables with wagons and carts in the wide stable yard. Men came out of the stables to watch the strange sight of a black-robed priest with a girl and a small dark Indian boy coming after. Père Le Clercq was all force and dignity now. He led them up on the wide veranda and into the tavern room where players sat at cards. A heavy-faced man with long red hair behind the bar said Captain Stanton was out at one of his farms but would be back this evening. The priest took his charges through a dining room with white cloths on heavy oak tables and into a parlor on the other side of the hall. A servant woman with blue calico tied around her head came to protest that this was the private living quarters of the family. The priest brushed her aside.

“We belong to the family,” he said mysteriously in his strange English accent. “Captain Stanton will be glad enough to see us here when he comes.”

It was a very fine room, élégant, the priest called it in French, the tongue he always used to Stone Girl. It was in truth more élégant than the petit salon of Madame Corbusier, but it was the curious smell in here that affected the girl most. Sitting here she could close her eyes and feel red clouds again swirl about her. When she opened her eyes, a tall white lamp painted with blue forget-me-nots rose from a table. There were fine chairs and a canapé. A small gold chair stood at the small desk with legs curved like those of a deer. Above it hung a painting of the lady with yellow hair.

Otter Boy kept stirring uneasily.

“Guka, Mamma. Why does the white woman on the wall watch me all the time?” he whispered. “When I came in the door I saw her watch me. Now she watches me over here. I am afraid of white people who watch me.”

“Otter Boy. It is nothing to be afraid of. She watches you because her blood is in you. She is Ohum, your grandmother. Soon she will come in to see you.”

“What will she do?” Otter Boy asked uneasily.