"St. Isidore, pray for us..."

The prayers over, mother Chapdelaine sighed out contentedly:--"How
pleasant it is to have a caller, when we see hardly anyone but
Eutrope Gagnon from year's end to year's end. But that is what comes
of living so far 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, the merchant, who had nice manners and
was always trying to speak as the French do; many others as well--
not counting your father who came to see us almost every night for
three years, while I was making up my mind..."

Three years! Maria thought to herself that she had only seen
Francois Paradis twice since she was a child, and she felt ashamed
at the beating of her heart.



CHAPTER IV

WILD LAND

AFTER a few chilly days, June suddenly brought veritable spring
weather. A blazing sun warmed field and forest, the lingering
patches of snow vanished even in the deep shade of the woods; the
Peribonka rose and rose between its rocky banks until the alders and
the roots of the nearer spruces were drowned; in the roads the mud
was incredibly deep. The Canadian soil rid itself of the last traces