the long roads buried in snow. Why should she stay here to toil and
suffer when she might escape to the lands of the south and a happier
life

The soft breeze telling of spring came against the window, bringing
a confusion of gentle sounds; the swish and sigh of branches swaying
and touching one another, the distant hooting of an owl. Then the
great silence reigned once more. Samuel Chapdelaine was sleeping;
but in this repose beside the dead was nothing unseemly or wanting
in respect; chin fallen on his breast, bands lying open on his
knees, he seemed to be plunged into the very depths of sorrow or
striving to relinquish life that be might follow the departed a
little way into the shades.

Again Maria asked herself:--"Why stay here, to toil and suffer
thus? Why? ..." And when she found no answer, it befell at length
that out of the silence and the night voices arose.

No miraculous voices were these; each of us bears them when he goes
apart and withdraws himself far enough to escape from the petty
turmoil of his daily life. But they speak more loudly and with
plainer accents to the simple-hearted, to those who dwell among the
great northern woods and in the empty places of the earth. While yet
Maria was dreaming of the city's distant wonders the first voice
brought murmuringly to her memory a hundred forgotten charms of the
land she wished to flee.

The marvel of the reappearing earth in the springtime after the long
months of winter ... The dreaded snow stealing away in prankish
rivulets down every slope; the tree-roots first resurgent, then the