Corinne had been fond of the nuns; but the life of the cloister was little to her taste.  She was glad enough to escape from its monotony, and to make her home with her father’s sister.  Madame Drucour could tell her the most thrilling and delightful stories of the siege of Louisbourg.  Already she felt to know a great deal about war in general and sieges in particular.  She often experienced a thrill of pride and delight in the thought that she herself was about to be a witness of a siege of which all the world would be talking.

As she stood at the window today, a footstep rang through the quiet house below, and suddenly the door of the little chamber was flung wide open.

“Corinne!” cried a ringing voice which she well knew.

She turned round with a little cry of joy.

“Colin!” she cried, and the next minute brother and sister were locked in a fervent embrace.

“O Colin, Colin, when did you come, and whence?”

“Just this last hour, and from Montreal,” he answered.  “Oh, what strange adventures I have seen since last we met!  Corinne, there have been times when I thought never to see you again!  I have so much to say I know not where to begin.  I have seen our triumphs, and I have seen our defeat.  Corinne, it is as our uncle said.  There is a great man now at the helm in England, and we are feeling his power out here in the West.”

“Do you think the tide has turned against the French arms?” asked Corinne breathlessly.

“What else can I think?  Has not Fort Frontenac fallen?  Has not Fort Duquesne been abandoned before the advancing foe?  Our realm in the west is cut away from Canada in the north.  If we cannot reunite them, our power is gone.  And they say that Ticonderoga and Crown Point will be the next to fall.  The English are massing upon Lake George.  They have commanders of a different calibre now.  Poor Ticonderoga!  I grew to love it well.  I spent many a happy month there.  But what can we do to save it, threatened as we are now by the English fleet in the great St. Lawrence itself?”

“Are they not brave, these English?” cried Corinne, with an enthusiasm of admiration in her face and voice.  “Colin, I am glad, oh very glad, that you and I are not all French.  We can admire our gallant foes without fear of disloyalty to our blood.  We have cause to know how gallant and chivalrous they can be.”

Colin’s eyes lighted with eager pleasure.

“You remember that day in the forest, Corinne, and how we were protected by English Rangers from hurt?”

“Ah, do I not!  And I have heard, too, from our Aunt Drucour, of their kindness and generosity to a conquered army—­”

But she stopped, and waited for her brother to speak, as she saw that he had more to say.

“You remember the big, tall Ranger, whose name was Fritz?” he said eagerly.

“Yes, I remember him well.”

“He is here—­in Quebec—­in this house at this very minute!  He and I have travelled from Montreal with my uncle.”