hour.

"The thousand Aves have been said," murmured Maria to herself, "but
I have not yet asked for anything ... not in words." She bad
thought that perhaps it were not needful; that the Divinity might
understand without hearing wishes shaped by lips--Mary above all ...
Who had been a woman upon earth. But at the last her simple mind
was taken with a doubt, and she tried to find speech for the favour
she was seeking.

Francois Paradis ... Most surely it concerns Francois Paradis.
Hast Thou already guessed it, O Mary, full of grace? How might she
frame this her desire without impiety? That he should be spared
hardship in the woods ... That he should be true to his word and
give up drinking and swearing ... That he return in the spring

That he return in the spring ... She goes no further, for it seems
to her that when be is with her again, his promise kept, all the
happiness in the world must he within their reach, unaided ...
almost unaided ... If it be not presumptuous so to think ...

That he return in the spring ... Dreaming of his return, of
Francois, the handsome sunburnt face turned to hers, Maria forgets
all else, and looks long with unseeing eyes at the snow-covered
ground which the moonlight has turned into a glittering fabric of
ivory and mother-of-pearl-at the black pattern of the fences
outlined upon it, and the menacing ranks of the dark forest.