We did not go into the subject of his travels at that time, for I began to wonder who was going to teach me books, and heard with surprise that it was Doctor Chantry.

“But I struck him with the little knife that springs out of a box.”

Skenedonk assured me that Doctor Chantry thought nothing of it, and there was no wound but a scratch.  He looked on me as his pupil.  He knew all kinds of books.

Evidently Doctor Chantry liked me from the moment I showed fight.  His Anglo-Saxon blood was stirred.  He received me from Skenedonk, who shook my hand and wished me well, before paddling away.

De Chaumont’s house was full as a hive around the three sides of its flowered court.  A ball was in preparation, and all the guests had arrived.  Avoiding these gentry we mounted stairs toward the roof, and came into a burst of splendor.  As far as the eye could see through square east and west windows, unbroken forests stretched to the end of the world, or Lake George wound, sown thick with islands, ranging in size from mere rocks supporting a tree, to wooded acres.

The room which weaned me from aboriginal life was at the top of the central building.  Doctor Chantry shuffled over the clean oak floor and introduced me to my appointments.  There were curtains like frost work, which could be pushed back from the square panes.  At one end of the huge apartment was my huge bed, formidable with hangings.  Near it stood a table for the toilet.  He opened a closet door in the wall and showed a spiral staircase going down to a tunnel which led to the lake.  For when De Chaumont first came into the wilderness and built the central house without its wings, he thought it well to have a secret way out, as his chateau in the old country had.

“The tunnel is damp,” said Doctor Chantry.  “I never venture into it, though all the corner rooms below give upon this stairway, and mine is just under yours.”

It was like returning me the lake to use in my own accustomed way.  For the remainder of my furniture I had a study table, a cupboard for clothes, some arm-chairs, a case of books, and a massive fireplace with chimney seats at the end of the room opposite the bed.

I asked Doctor Chantry, “Was all this made ready for me before I was sure of coming here?”

“When the count decides that a thing will be done it is usually done,” said my schoolmaster.  “And Madame de Ferrier was very active in forwarding the preparations.”

The joy of youth in the unknown was before me.  My old camp life receded behind me.

Madame de Ferrier’s missal-book lay on the table, and when I stopped before it tongue-tied, Doctor Chantry said I was to keep it.

“She gives it to you.  It was treasured in her family on account of personal attachment to the giver.  She is not a Catholic.  She was brought up as good a Protestant as any English gentlewoman.”

“I told her it was my mother’s.  It seemed to be my mother’s.  But I don’t know—­I can’t remember.”