There was a time when this night-watch passed in drowsiness, as she resignedly awaited the moment when the finished task would bring her sleep; but since the coming of Francois Paradis the long weekly vigil was very sweet to her, for she could think of him and of herself with nothing to distract her dear imaginings.  Simple they were, these thoughts of hers, and never did they travel far afield.  In the springtime he will come back; this return of his, the joy of seeing him again, the words he will say when they find themselves once more alone, the first touch of hands and lips.  Not easy was it for Maria to make a picture for herself of how these things were to come about.

Yet she essayed.  First she repeated his full name two or three times, formally, as others spoke it:  Paradis, from St. Michel de Mistassini ...  Francois Paradis ...  Then suddenly, with sweet intimacy,—­Francois!

The evocation fails not.  He stands before her tall and strong, bold of eye, his face bronzed with sun and snow-glare.  He is by her side, rejoicing at the sight of her, rejoicing that he has kept his faith, has lived the whole year discreetly, without drinking or swearing.  There are no blueberries yet to gather-it is only springtime-yet some good reason they find for rambling off to the woods; he walks beside her without word or joining of hands, through the massed laurel flaming into blossom, and naught beyond does either need to flush the cheek, to quicken the beating of the heart.

Now they are seated upon a fallen tree, and thus he speaks:  “Were you lonely without me, Maria?” Most surely it is the first question he will put to her; but she is able to carry the dream no further for the sudden pain stabbing her heart.  Ah! dear God! how long will she have been lonely for him before that moment comes!  A summer to be lived through, an autumn, and all the endless winter!  She sighs, but the steadfast patience of the race sustains her, and her thoughts turn upon herself and what the future may be holding.

When she was at St. Prime, one of her cousins who was about to be wedded spoke often to her of marriage.  A young man from the village and another from Normandin had both courted her; for long months spending the Sunday evenings together at the house.

“I was fond of them both,”—­thus she declared to Maria.  “And I really think I liked Zotique best; but he went off to the drive on the St. Maurice, and he wasn’t to be back till summer; then Romeo asked me and I said, ‘Yes.’  I like him very well, too.”

Maria made no answer, but even then her heart told her that all marriages are not like that; now she is very sure.  The love of Francois Paradis for her, her love for him, is a thing apart-a thing holy and inevitable—­for she was unable to imagine that between them it should have befallen otherwise; so must this love give warmth and unfading colour to every day of the dullest life.  Always had she dim consciousness of such a presence-moving the spirit like the solemn joy of chanted masses, the intoxication of a sunny windy day, the happiness that some unlooked-for good fortune brings, the certain promise of abundant harvest ...