"Yes?"

But it was not of Esdras and Da'Be that she had just been thinking.



CHAPTER IX

ONE THOUSAND AVES

SINCE the coming of winter they had often talked at the Chapdelaines
about the holidays, and now these were drawing near.

"I am wondering whether we shall have any callers on New Year's
Day," said Madame Chapdelaine one evening. She went over the list of
all relatives and friends able to make the venture. "Azalma Larouche
does not live so far away, but she--she is not very energetic. The
people at St. Prime would not me to take the journey. Possibly
Wilfrid or Ferdinand might drive from St. Gedeon if the ice on the
lake were in good condition." A sigh disclosed that she still was
dreaming of the coming and going in the old parishes at the time of
the New Year, the family dinners, the unlooked-for visits of kindred
arriving by sleigh from the next village, buried under rugs and
furs, behind a horse whom coat was white with frost.

Maria's thoughts were turning in another direction. "If the roads
are as bad as they were last year," said she, "we shall not be able
to attend the midnight mass. And yet I should so much have liked it
this time, and father promised ..."