that if the good God only kept me in health I would make her the
best farm in the countryside."

The rain was ever sounding on the roof now and then a gust drove
against the window great drops which ran down the panes like
slow-falling tears. Yet a few hours of rain and the soil would be
bare, streams would dance down every slope; a few more days and they
would hear the thundering of the falls.

"When we took up other land above Mistassini," Samuel Chapdelaine
continued, "it was the same thing over again; heavy work and
hardship for both of us alike; but she was always full of courage
and in good heart ... We were in the midst of the forest, but as
there were some open spaces of rich grass among the rocks we took to
raising sheep. One evening He was silent for a little, and when he
began speaking again his eyes were fixed intently upon Maria, as
though he wished to make very clear to her what he was about to say.

"It was in September; the time when all the great creatures of the
woods become dangerous. A man from Mistassini who was coming down
the river in a canoe landed near our place and spoke to us
thiswise:--'Look after your sheep; the bears came and killed a
heifer last week quite close to the houses.' So your mother and I
went off that evening to the pasture to drive the sheep into the pen
for the night so that the bears would not devour them.

"I took one side and she the other, as the sheep used to scatter
among the alders. It was growing dark, and suddenly I heard Laura
cry out: 'Oh, the scoundrels!' Some animals were moving in the
bushes, and it was plain to see they were not sheep, because in the