into _côtes_ or little villages which almost touched elbows along the
banks of the stream. In each of these hamlets the manor-house or home
of the seigneur, although not a mansion by any means, was the focus of
social life. Sometimes built of timber but more often of stone, with
dimensions rarely exceeding twenty feet by forty, it was not much more
pretentious than the homes of the more prosperous and thrifty among
the seigneur's dependents. Its three or four spacious rooms were,
however, more comfortably equipped with furniture which in many cases
had been brought from France. Socially, the seigneur and his family
did not stand apart from his neighbors. All went to the same church,
took part in the same amusements upon days of festival, and not
infrequently worked together at the common task of clearing the lands.
Sons and daughters of the seigneurs often intermarried with those of
habitants in the seigneury or of traders in the towns. There was no
social _impasse_ such as existed in France among the various elements
in a community.

As for the habitants, the people who cleared and cultivated the lands
of the seigneuries, they worked and lived and dressed as pioneers are
wont to do. Their homes were commonly built of felled timber or of
rough-hewn stone, solid, low, stocky buildings, usually about twenty
by forty feet or thereabouts in size, with a single doorway and very
few windows. The roofs were steep-pitched, with a dormer window or two
thrust out on either side, the eaves projecting well over the walls in
such manner as to give the structures a half-bungalow appearance. With
almost religious punctuality the habitants whitewashed the outside of
their walls every spring, so that from the river the country houses
looked trim and neat at all seasons. Between the river and the uplands
ran the roadway, close to which the habitants set their conspicuous
dwellings with only in rare cases a grass plot or shade tree at the