And so, with all its grace of curve and bend, and so—­the description is longer than the voyage—­we come to our first stopping-place.  To the side, in front of the well-kept fertile fields, like a proud little showman, stood the little house.  Its pointed shingle roof covered it like the top of a chafing-dish, reaching down to the windows, which peeped out from under it like little eyes.

A woman came out of the door to meet us.  She had had time during our graceful winding approach to prepare for us.  What an irrevocable vow to old maidenhood!  At least twenty-five, almost a possible grandmother, according to Acadian computation, and well in the grip of advancing years.  She was dressed in a stiff, dark red calico gown, with a white apron.  Her black hair, smooth and glossy under a varnish of grease, was plaited high in the back, and dropped regular ringlets, six in all, over her forehead.  That was the epoch when her calamity came to her, when the hair was worn in that fashion.  A woman seldom alters her coiffure after a calamity of a certain nature happens to her.  The figure had taken a compact rigidity, an unfaltering inflexibility, all the world away from the elasticity of matronhood; and her eyes were clear and fixed like her figure, neither falling, nor rising, nor puzzling under other eyes.  Her lips, her hands, her slim feet, were conspicuously single, too, in their intent, neither reaching, nor feeling, nor running for those other lips, hands, and feet which should have doubled their single life.

That was Adorine Merionaux, otherwise the most industrious Acadian and the best cottonade-weaver in the parish.  It had been short, her story.  A woman’s love is still with those people her story.  She was thirteen when she met him.  That is the age for an Acadian girl to meet him, because, you know, the large families—­the thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, twenty children—­take up the years; and when one wishes to know one’s great-great-grandchildren (which is the dream of the Acadian girl) one must not delay one’s story.

She had one month to love him in, and in one week they were to have the wedding.  The Acadians believe that marriage must come au point, as cooks say their sauces must be served.  Standing on the bayou-bank in front of the Merionaux, one could say “Good day” with the eyes to the Zeverin Theriots—­that was the name of the parents of the young bridegroom.  Looking under the branches of the oaks, one could see across the prairie,—­prairie and sea-marsh it was,—­and clearly distinguish another little red-washed house like the Merionaux, with a painted roof hanging over the windows, and a staircase going up outside to the garret.  With the sun shining in the proper direction, one might distinguish more, and with love shining like the sun in the eyes, one might see, one might see—­a heart full.

It was only the eyes, however, which could make such a quick voyage to the Zeverin Theriots; a skiff had a long day’s journey to reach them.  The bayou sauntered along over the country like a negro on a Sunday’s pleasuring, trusting to God for time, and to the devil for means.