* * * * *

She was so violently insane when she reached Winnipeg that they decided a trial was unnecessary, so she was placed at once in an asylum.

After they had buried his little mate on the great silent prairie, Joe tried to forget and to do his work as usual; but the odor of the newly-severed sod, the cracking of the drivers’ whips, the shouting to the stubborn mules, the stampede over the prairie at noon, the hateful sight of Shuter and his daughter—­in fact, everything around him—­made the longing for the company of his little driver so keen that he could not bear it, and a week after his death he drew his wages and slipped away, none knew whither.

* * * * *

A Daughter of the Church.

It had been a severe Canadian winter, but the bright spring sunshine was now honeycombing the great snow-heap, which all winter had beset farmer Frechette’s farm-house, and which, on this early March morning, was still banked almost as high as the kitchen window.

Glinting through the old-fashioned narrow panes, the generous rays fell upon the white bowed head of farmer Frechette, who sat warming himself at the square box wood-stove, gazing the while with furrowed brow at the roystering wood sparks, as at short intervals they shot aggressively from the partly open door.

Suddenly there floated through the raised window the joyous chimes of church bells.  With an angry exclamation the old man sprang to his feet, hurried to the window, and violently drew it down.  His extreme weakness made the anger that convulsed his thin, wrinkled face painful to see.  Straightening up his bent frame, he shook his hand at the church, which he could see in the distance, and uttered anathemas against it.  As he did so, the door leading from the little bedroom at the back of the kitchen was burst open, and his wife, a woman many years younger than he, ran over to his side, dragged down his still uplifted arm, and led him over to his seat.  She then sat down beside him, and burying her face in her hands, began to cry.

Her distress moved him and he told her somewhat doggedly, but not unkindly, to cease.  “Do you know what the bells are ringing for?” he asked cynically, after a short pause.

“Why worry about it?  We must submit,” she answered, trying to keep out of her voice the discontent that assailed her.

“They are ringing,” he went on in a hard voice, “for farmer Cadieux’s daughter, who is to take her life vows to-day.  Already he has one daughter a nun, and his honor among French-Canadians will increase.  I have lived in St. Jerome all my life, and have neither daughter nor son in the Church; they pity me.  It was only yesterday we received the letter from Quebec telling us of the honor that had come to my brother through his daughter taking the veil.  None of our neighbors were more passionately attached to their children than we; yet death passed by their doors, came to ours, and took them all.  Continued disappointment has made me weary of life.  The sound of the church bells, which I have heard so often sing honor for others, drives me to outbursts of shameful anger.  At times I think I shall go mad.  As for the Church, I have nearly lost all faith in it.”