miles away; but what were eight miles over the snow and through the
woods compared with the delight of hearing songs and stories, and of
talk with people from afar?

A numerous company was assembled under the Surprenant roof: several
of the villagers, the three Frenchmen who had bought his nephew
Lorenzo's farm, and also, to the Chapdelaines' great surprise,
Lorenzo himself, back once more from the States upon business that
related to the sale and the settling of his father's affairs. He
greeted Maria very warmly, and seated himself beside her.

The men lit their pipes; they chatted about the weather, the
condition of the roads, the country news; but the conversation
lagged, as though all were looking for it to take some unusual turn.
Their glances sought Lorenzo and the three Frenchmen, expecting
strange and marvellous tales of distant lands and unfamiliar manners
from an assembly so far out of the common. The Frenchmen, only a few
months in the country, apparently felt a like curiosity, for they
listened, and spoke but little.

Samuel Chapdelaine, who was meeting them for the first time, deemed
himself called upon to put them through a catechism in the ingenuous
Canadian fashion.

"So you have come here to till the land. How do you like Canada?"

"It is a beautiful country, new and so vast ... In the
summer-time there are many flies, and the winters are trying; but I
suppose that one gets used to these things in time."