Maria Chapdelaine

und that made her stand motionless and listening. The distant and continuo

e announced to those withi

stumps and roots were beginning to appear, although the shade of close-set cypress and fir prolonged the death-struggle of the perishing snowdrifts; the roads became quagmires; wherever the brown mosses were uncovered they were full of water as a s

listen to the tinkle of water running from the last drifts on higher slopes, or hearken to the mighty roar tell

y brought the remark-"Fran?ois will soon be passing. He said that perhaps he would come to

whence he would only return on the morrow. Telesphore and Alma Rose were asleep, Tit'Bé was having a last pipe before the family prayer, when Chien barked sev

tent had to be pitched and things put in order to make the Belgians comfortable for the night. When I set out I knew it was hardly t

breathed a little deeply between words, like a man who h

a hand he indicated the stature of a child. Mother Chapdelaine's face was bright with in

en years; not a bit; as for Maria

y at Peribonka." Tone and manner showed that the meeting of a fortnight ago had been allowed to blot

, thought he, were possessions of the child of seven years ago; and twice or thrice he shook his head as though to say that, in truth, she had no

of face in well-cut feature and fearless eye ... To herself she said with some surprise that she had not thought him thus-more forward perhaps, talking freely and rather positively-but

questioning:-"And so you sold t

ime to time as a guide or in trade with the Indians, that is the life for me; but to scratch away at the same fields from one year's end to

flies in summer; living in a tent on the snow, or in a log cabin full of chinks that the wind blows through, you like that better than spending your life on a good farm, near shops and houses. Just think of it; a nice bit of

med of these wrong-headed tastes of his. "A fine life for those who are f

e who brought to new lands his ideals of ordered life and contented immobility, and that othe

to believe that she was of the same mind; now she was no longer certain about it. But whoever was right she well knew that not one of the well-to-d

it all very naturally and with a shade of hesitation, scarcely knowing what to tell and what to leave out, for t

oins, quite alone, a tree that he was cutting for firewood slipped in falling, and it was the Indians who found him by chance next day, crushed and half-frozen though the weather was mild. He was in their game preserve, and they might very well have pretended not to see him and have left him to die there; but they put him on their toboggan, brought him to their camp, and looked after him. You knew my father: a rough man who often took a glass, but just in his dealings, and with a good name for doing that sort of thing himself. So when he parted with these Indians he told them to stop and see him in the spring when they would be coming down to Poi

o go. "We shall be coming down in a few weeks and I will try to stay a

t they found no message. In her maidenly simplicity she feared to show herself too bold, and very resolutely she kept her glance lowered, li

yer. The mother led in a high voice, speaking very rapidly, the others answering i

, pray for us now and at

rt of Jesus, ha

f the spring, attracted by the light, entered likewise and the slender music of their wings fill

Joseph, pra

ore, pray

away in the woods ... Now, when I was a girl at St. Gedeon, the house was full of visitors nearly every Saturday evening and all Sunday: Adelard Saint-Onge who courted me for such a long time; Wilfrid Tremblay, th

nly seen Fran?ois Paradis twice since she was a chil