“Oui, Monsieur,” returned Marie’s father, “Monsieur Scott is a very great favourite with our family.  We are under an obligation to him that it will be difficult for us ever to repay.”

“Whence comes this benefactor,” queried M. Riel, with an ugly sneer, “and how has he placed you under such obligation?” Then, reflecting that he was showing a bitterness respecting the young man which he could just then neither explain nor justify, he said: 

“Mais, pardonnez moi.  Think me not rude for asking these questions.  When pretty eyes are employed to see, and pretty lips to tell of, game for one sportsman in preference to another, the neglected one may be excused for seeking to know in what way fortune has been kind with his rival.”

“Shall I tell the whole story, Marie?” enquired the pere, “or will you do so?”

“O I know that you will not leave anything out that can show, the bravery of Mr. Scott, so I shall leave you to tell it,” replied the girl.

“Well, last spring, Marie was spending some days with her aunt, a few miles up Red River.  It was the flood time, and as you remember the river was swollen to a point higher than it had ever reached within the memory of any body in the settlement.  Marie is venturesome, and since a child has shown a keen delight in going upon boats, or paddling a canoe; so one day, during the visit which I have mentioned, she got into a birch that swung in a little pond formed behind her uncle’s premises by the over-flowing of the stream’s channel.  Untying the canoe, she seized the blade and began to paddle about in the lazy water.  Presently she reached the eddies, which, since a child, she has always called the ’rings of the water-witches,’ wherever she learned that term.  Her cousin, Violette, was standing in the doorway, as she saw Marie move off, and she cried out to her to beware of the eddies; but my daughter, wayward and reckless, as it is her habit to be in such matters, merely replied with a laugh; and then, as the canoe began to turn round and round in the gurgling circles, she cried out, ’I am in the rings of the water-witches.  C’est bon! bon!  C’est magnifique!  O I wish you were with me, Violette, ma chere.  It is so delightful to go round and round.’  A little way beyond, not more than twice the canoe’s length, rushed by, roaring, the full tide of the river.  ’Beware, Marie, beware, for the love of heaven, of the river.  If you get a little further out, and these eddies will drag you out, you will be in the mad current, and no arm can paddle the canoe to land out of the flood.  Then, dear, there is the fall below, and the fans of the mill.  Come back, won’t you!’ But my daughter heeded not the words.  She only laughed, and began dipping water up from the eddies with the paddle-blade, as if it were a spoon that she held in her hand.  ’I am dipping water from the witches rings,’ she cried.  ’How the drops sparkle!  Every one is a glittering jewel of priceless value.  I wish you