is not to be had, for the proper compensation, in Joe’s establishment,—­that is, anything that could possibly be required by the most exacting sauvage or sauvagesse, from a strap of sleigh-bells to a red-framed looking-glass.  Out of that store, too, comes a deal of the vivid drapery displayed upon the Fete Dieu, and much of the art-union resource combined in the attractive cheap lithograph element so edifying to the connoisseur.

I think it was one of those fetes—­if not, another bright summer holiday—­that I once saw darkly disturbed in this quiet little hamlet.  Standing upon the table-rock that juts out at the foot of the fall so as to half-bridge over the lower-most eddy, I saw a small object topple over the summit of the cascade.  It was nothing but a common pail or stable-bucket, as I perceived, when it glided past, almost within arm’s length of me, and disappeared down the winding gorge.  When I went up again to the road, I saw a crowd of holiday people standing near the little inn.  They were solemn and speechless, and, on approaching, I saw that they were gazing upon the body of a man, dead and sadly crushed and mutilated.  He was a caleche-driver from Quebec, well known to the small community; and although it does not seem any great height from the roadway near the inn to the tumbled rocks by the river’s edge just above the fall, yet it was a drop to mash and kill the poor fellow dead enough, when his foot slipped, as he descended the unsafe path to get water for his horse.  A dweller in great cities—­say, for instance, one who lives within decent distance of such a charming locality as that called the Five Points in New York—­could hardly realize the amount of awe that an event so trifling as a sudden and violent death will spread over a primitive village community.  This happened in the French division of the place, which, of course, was decorated to the utmost ability of the people in honor of the fete:  and so palpable was the gloom cast over all by the circumstance, that the bright flannels flaunting from the cordons stretched across the way seemed to darken into palls, and the gay red streamers must have appeared to the subdued carnival spirits as warning crape-knots on the door-handle of death.

I believe it is a maxim with the Italian connoisseur of art, that no landscape is perfect without one red spot to give value to its varieties of green.  On this principle, let me break the monotony of this little rural sketch with the one touch of genuine American character that belonged to it at the time of which I speak.  Let William Button be the one red spot that predominated vastly over the green influences by which he was surrounded.  The little inn at Lorette was then kept by a worthy host bearing the above-mentioned name, which was dingily lettered out upon a swinging sign, dingily representing a trotting horse,—­emblem as dear to the slow Canadian as to the fast American mind.  William Button—­known