on their toboggan, brought him to their camp, and looked after him.  You knew my father:  a rough man who often took a glass, but just in his dealings, and with a good name for doing that sort of thing himself.  So when he parted with these Indians he told them to stop and see him in the spring when they would be coming down to Pointe Bleue with their furs-Francois Paradis of Mistassini,’ said he to them, will not forget what you have done ...  Francois Paradis.’  And when they came in spring while running the river he looked after them well and every one carried away a new ax, a fine woollen blanket and tobacco for six months.  Always after that they used to pay us a visit in the spring, and father had the pick of their best skins for less than the companies’ buyers had to pay.  When he died they treated me in the same way be cause I was his son and bore the same name, Francois Paradis.  With more capital I could have made a good bit of money in this trade-a good bit of money.”

He seemed a little uncomfortable at having talked so much, and arose to go.  “We shall be coming down in a few weeks and I will try to stay a little longer,” he said as he departed.  “It is good to see you again.”

On the door-step his keen eyes sought in Maria’s for something that he might carry into the depth of the green woods whither he was bent; but they found no message.  In her maidenly simplicity she feared to show herself too bold, and very resolutely she kept her glance lowered, like the young girls with richer parents who return from the convents in Chicoutimi trained to look on the world with a superhuman demureness.

Scarcely was gone when the two women and Tit’Be knelt for the evening prayer.  The mother led in a high voice, speaking very rapidly, the others answering in a low murmur.  Five Paters, five Ayes, the Acts, and then a long responsive Litany.

“Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death...”

“Immaculate heart of Jesus, have pity on us...”

The window was open and through it came the distant roaring of the falls.  The first mosquitos, of the spring, attracted by the light, entered likewise and the slender music of their whip filled the house.  Tit’Be went and closed the window, then fell on his knees again beside the others.

“Great St. Joseph, pray for us...”

“St. Isidore, pray for us...”

The prayers over, mother Chapdelaine sighed out contentedly:—­“How pleasant it is to have a caller, when we see hardly anyone but Eutrope Gagnon from year’s end to year’s end.  But that is what comes of living so far away in the woods ...  Now, when I was a girl at St. Gedeon, the house was full of visitors nearly every Saturday evening and all Sunday:  Adelard Saint-Onge who courted me for such a long time; Wilfrid Tremblay, the merchant, who had nice manners and was always trying to speak as the French do; many others as well—­ not counting your father who came to see us almost every night for three years, while I was making up my mind...”