Chapdelaines.

"Is it Samuel Chapdelaine who has a farm in the woods on the other
side of the river, above Honfleur?"

"That's the man."

"And the girl with him is his daughter? Maria ..."

"Yes, she has been spending a month at St. Prime with her mother's
people. They are Bouchards, related to Wilfrid Bouchard of St.
Gedeon ..."

Interested glances were directed toward the top of the steps. One of
the young people paid Maria the countryman's tribute of
admiration--"A fine hearty girl!" said he.

"Right you are! A fine hearty girl, and one with plenty of spirit
too. A pity that she lives so far off in the woods. How are the
young fellows of the village to manage an evening at their place, on
the other side of the river and above the falls, more than a dozen
miles away and the last of them with next to no road?"

The smiles were bold enough as they spoke of her, this inaccessible
beauty; but as she came down the wooden steps with her father and
passed near by, they were taken with bashfulness and awkwardly drew
back, as though something more lay between her and them than the
crossing of a river and twelve miles of indifferent woodland road.

Little by little the groups before the church dissolved. Some