Il y a longtemps, que je t'aime,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai . .

"Hail Mary, full of grace ..."

The song ended, Maria forthwith resumed her prayers with zeal
refreshed, and once again the tale of the Aves mounted.

Little Alma Rose, asleep on her father's knee, was undressed and put
to bed; Telesphore followed; Tit'Be arose in turn, stretched
himself, and fined the stove with green birch logs; the father made
a last trip to the stable and came back running, saying that the
cold was increasing. Soon all had retired, save Maria.

"You won't forget to put out the lamp?"

"No, father."

Forthwith she quenched the light, preferring it so, and seated
herself again by the window to repeat the last Aves. When she had
finished, a scruple assailed her, and a fear lest she had erred in
the reckoning, because it had not always been possible to count the
beads of her rosary. Out of prudence she recited yet another fifty
and then was silent-jaded, weary, but full of happy confidence, as
though the moment had brought her a promise inviolable.

The world outside was lit; wrapped in that frore splendour which the
night unrolls over lands of snow when the sky is clear and the moon
is shining. Within the house was darkness, and it seemed that wood
and field had illumined themselves to signal the coming of the holy