fixture in the calendar with rites appropriate; it signifies the renewed promise of salvation, an occasion of deep rejoicing, and those gathered in the wooden church are imbued with sincerest fervour, are pervaded with a deep sense of the supernatural.  This year, more than ever, Maria yearned to attend the-mass after many weeks of remoteness from houses and from churches; the favours she would fain demand seemed more likely to be granted were she able to prefer them before the altar, aided in heavenward flight by the wings of music.

But toward the middle of December much snow fell, dry and fine as dust, and three days before Christmas the north-west wind arose and made an end of the roads.  On the morrow of the storm Chapdelaine harnessed Charles Eugene to the heavy sleigh and departed with Tit’Be; they took shovels to clear the way or lay out another route.  The two men returned by noon, worn out, white with snow, asserting that there would be no breaking through for several days.  The disappointment must be borne; Maria sighed, but the idea came to her that there might be other means of attaining the divine goodwill.

“Is it true, mother,” she asked as evening was falling, “that if you repeat a thousand Aves on the day before Christmas you are always granted the thing you seek?”

“Quite true,” her mother reverently answered.  “One desiring a favour who says her thousand Aves properly before midnight on Christmas Eve, very seldom fails to receive what she asks.”

On Christmas Eve the weather was cold but windless.  The two men went out betimes in another effort to beat down the road, with no great hope of success; but long before they left, and indeed long before daylight, Maria began to recite her Aves.  Awakening very early, she took her rosary from beneath the pillow and swiftly repeated the prayer, passing from the last word to the first without stopping, and counting, bead by bead.

The others were still asleep; but Chien left his place at the stove when he saw that she moved, and came to sit beside the bed, gravely reposing his head upon the coverings.  Maria’s glance wandered over the long white muzzle resting upon the brown wool, the liquid eyes filled with the dumb creature’s pathetic trustfulness, the drooping glossy ears; while she ceased not to murmur the sacred words.-” Hail Mary, full of grace ...”

Soon Tit’Be jumped from bed to put wood upon the fire; an impulse of shyness caused Maria to turn away and hide her rosary under the coverlet as she continued to pray.  The stove roared; Chien went back to his usual spot, and for another half-hour nothing was stirring in the house save the fingers of Maria numbering the boxwood beads, and her lips as they moved rapidly in the task she had laid upon herself.

Then must she arise, for the day was dawning; make the porridge and the pancakes while the men went to the stable to care for the animals, wait upon them when they returned, wash the dishes, sweep the house.  What time she attended to these things, Maria was ever raising a little higher toward heaven the monument of her Aves; but the rosary had to be laid aside and it was hard to keep a true reckoning.  As the morning advanced however, no urgent duty calling, she was able to sit by the window and steadily pursue her undertaking.