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78 rough walls; and suddenly Andree reached her long arms, swung a child up by its clothes and held it close, crooning over it.

"Mon bébé," she said. "Ah, mon bébé."

It took no interest in her kisses, and presently she tired of it, letting it roll back on the floor where it lay screaming until its mother stopped its mouth with a shred of moosemeat.

"It's so sore peety you no mak' marree down in Calgary, Andree," she expostulated.

Andree looked long at the fat, greasy, good-humoured face; at the high cheek-bones and the twinkling beady eyes, and the black coarse hair sleeked down behind the ears. This woman was distant kin to her; but she felt neither love nor disgust at the knowledge.

"Do you like to be married, Moosta?" she said.

"It is goot to haf one man work for me," said Moosta calmly.

"Bien! I like two boy better than one—and three boy better than two." Andree drew basin and spoon to her and began her meal. "Mais—one man all the time!" she said, and lifted her shoulders. Moosta pulled the last baby into her capacious lap.

"Mebbe you no hear dey mak' burree O'Hara to-day," she said.

"What?"

The word was sharp as a box on the ears. It fluttered the gentle Moosta.

"It was s'pose he dead," she explained apologetically.

Andree shivered away as though she had touched something clammy and very cold.

"Akaweya! Do not say it to me! Non! Non! I did not make him dead. I will forget it. Astum, Eustace. Come, petit napasis. We will sing. We will dance."

She swept up a three-year-old who had inherited Grange's eternal giggle, and whirled through the room with him, chanting a song of the lumber-camps. "Derrier chez nous, ya-t-un étang, En roulant ma boule.