new people

"I don't like to."

"Why not?"

"It seems strange. They may not care to have us visit them."

"We can only try. If they turn us away why, that is the worst we need expect." So, drawing Priscilla's arm within hers, Amy led her up the narrow flagged walk toward the Convent School.

A sister wearing a glazed bonnet with a long veil was trimming rosebushes in the garden bed close to the house.

"Yes, surely, we are glad to have visitors. The school itself is closed now, for the girls have their holidays, but you can see all there is. Excuse me for a moment and I will be with you."

In a short time she had joined them in the little hallway to which they had been admitted by another sister.

"Would the ladies care to see the chapel?"

"Ladies" had a pleasant sound to Priscilla, and she put aside her prejudice against entering churches not of her own faith.

The chapel was simply a large room suitably fitted with altar and seats. It had no color, but everything was daintily white, with here and there a touch of gold.

The neat dormitory, the pleasant schoolroom, and the spotless cleanliness of the whole house appealed to Priscilla, and to her surprise she found herself asking the sister questions about her work.

"We are Sisters of Charity, and our headquarters are in Halifax," the good sister said gently. "The school is but a little part of our work. We go in and out among the sick and the troubled. The Acadians are good to their own, and no one need suffer here; but some will make mistakes, and some suffer through the fault of others, and often the priest and the sisters alone can set things right."

Soon they had seen all that there was to see, and when the sister, looking at the clock, regretted that she must leave them to visit a sick woman, both girls asked if they might not walk with her.

"With pleasure," she replied. "Indeed, I would take you to the house where I am going, were it not that this woman is too sick to see visitors."

"We should like to see another Acadian house," said Amy; "we have visited only that of Alexandre Babet, and that was so plain."

"Ah, you have been at Alexandre Babet's. Then you have seen the little Yvonne. Is she not charming?"

"Yes, charming and talented. We have heard her sing."

"Yvonne sings sweetly. We have taught her some music here, but nature has done the most for her, and she is so patient about her eyes."

"Do you think that she will be blind?" asked Amy, anxiously.

"Oh, no, not wholly blind, though it is largely a question of doctors. This came to her through an illness a few years ago. She did not have the right care. They did not understand. But there is always hope, and I think that she is no worse this year or two."

"We have a friend who has taken a great fancy to Yvonne. She preferred to go up to Alexandre Babet's this morning rather than to come sightseeing with us."

"Yvonne wins the heart of all so quickly, and her good father and mother, though adopted, would do everything for her if they could. Poor Alexandre looks for a gold-mine."

"Yes, we know," and Amy smiled; "but I am glad to know that there is hope for Yvonne's eyes."

"Ah, yes, there is hope. Poor child! She has had a strange history."

At that moment two small girls crossed their path. They looked like little old women, with their shawls and couvre-chefs. The sister laid her hand on the shoulder of one of them.

"Where are you going?"

The girls hung their heads shamefaced, and would not meet the sister's gaze.

"Ah, you know; go home and get your hats."

The children ran off without looking back, and the sister turned with a smile to Amy and Priscilla.

"You see they are foolish. When they are at school I tell them they must wear hats every day; but in holidays they will put on couvre-chefs. It is an old fashion that I think not good. When they are married—ah! it is too bad—at once they put on the couvre-chef, the very girls that I took such trouble with. It takes long to get the Acadians away from the old fashions. But they are good people."

"We should like to see more of them," said Amy. "We should like to see another Acadian house. That of Alexandre Babet did not seem typical."

"Then I should be glad to take you to see one. Why, here we are, just opposite the house of Madame Doucet, who speaks some English, and with her daughter you would see two excellent Acadians. Would you care to call there? I will introduce you, though I must go on farther."

Priscilla looked up in protest, but when Amy expressed pleasure at the prospect of making the visit, she said nothing in opposition. The sister, saying a word or two more in praise of Madame Doucet, and leading them across the street, knocked briskly on the door of a small pink cottage.

This was one of the brightest of the brightly painted dwellings that Amy had noticed when on her wheel the day before,—a pink with pale-green trimmings. When the sister had introduced them to the heavy-browed young woman who came to the door, she left them, to go farther on her errand of mercy.

The young woman, after welcoming the girls heartily, led them to the kitchen in the rear, into which the bright morning sunshine was pouring, while a tiny canary in its cage sang cheerfully.

In the rocking-chair near a window sat an elderly woman, whom the daughter introduced as her mother. She was stouter and stronger looking than Madame Babet, and although she could hardly be called of ruddy complexion, she was far less sallow. Her face showed signs of age, but her hair had hardly begun to turn gray, and she welcomed the two girls so cordially that they were at once at their ease.

Amy, while the daughter exchanged a few words with her mother, glanced around the room. Its floor was partially covered with a square of oilcloth, and the most conspicuous article of furniture was the large, highly polished range, on which were several bright pans and kettles of tin. There were religious pictures on the wall, and one or two rocking-chairs. Evidently it was sitting-room as well as kitchen. A set of shelves in the corner laden with dishes attracted Amy's attention. Madame Doucet, observing Amy's interest, for she had stepped toward the shelves, said to her kindly,—

"Ah, go close, eef you please; you may touch them."

Amy gave an exclamation of delight as she took down a pitcher of copper lustre shining like burnished gold.

"How beautiful! I wish I had one like it."

"Ah, that is not to sell; it is family what you call it?"

"Heirloom," suggested Priscilla.

"But yes, that is so, for my grandmère had it long ago. She was daughter to an exile."

Amy handled the pitcher carefully as she set it back on the shelf. Few of the other dishes were china, though one delicate cup and saucer Amy pronounced older even than the pitcher.

When Priscilla complimented the two women on their English, they beamed with pride, and explained that they had made a great effort to learn it while living in Yarmouth, where the older woman's husband had worked in a mill.

"But we see not many English, so we have not much chance to practise. That how the sister send you here."

"As a language-lesson," murmured Amy; and even Priscilla smiled in spite of herself.

The younger woman was talkative. She took them into her neat bedroom, with its floor in two colors,—a yellow geometrical design painted on a brown ground,—and showed them with especial pride her dressing-table, the frame of which she had fashioned with her own hands and draped with white muslin. From the window she pointed out her little garden, with its vegetable patch and tiny strawberry-bed, which she worked herself.

"I sell some every year," she said. "That helps keep house. We don't need much, we Acadians; we very lazy."

"You don't seem lazy to me," remarked Amy; "certainly you are hard-working."

"P'raps lazy is not the word—no, it is content. We Acadians are too content with what we have. We want not too much, and so we make not money as the Americans."

With some difficulty Amy brought to a close the visit to the cheerful mother and daughter. She on her part, and they on theirs, had so many questions to ask and to answer.

On their way back to the hotel they stopped for a moment at the graveyard in front of the great brick church.

"Let us not go in," urged Priscilla.

"It may not be open," returned Amy, "though this Stella Maris interests me because our landlady told me that the whole parish helped build it. All saved and saved, and gave what they could, and the men, when they came home tired from fishing, would go some distance where the bricks were and haul them to the building. But if you don't care to go into the church, do spend a few minutes in the churchyard,—I have a weakness for studying old gravestones;" and as she spoke Amy's mind went back to a day long ago when she and Brenda and Nora and Julia had poked among the stones in that old burying-ground overlooking Marblehead Harbor. This thought reminded her of Fritz, who had teased her that day in his boyish way, and strangely enough these memories took such possession of her that she could not put her mind on this little churchyard of the Acadians.

Moreover there was less of interest here than she had expected. Inscriptions were few, and these were modern and practical. There was something pathetic in the general tangle of grass and shrubbery, and in the plain little wooden crosses that marked the majority of the graves.

As they approached the hotel a shout greeted them,—"Amy, Amy, Prissie, Prissie! Where have you been?"

"How silly Martine is!" Priscilla had barely time to say, when Martine herself rushed out of a little building near the house.

"Oh, do come in, Yvonne is with me; I've been buying her a hat."

"A hat!"

"Yes, do come and see. There's a man here from Halifax,—a drummer, I suppose,—and he has the loveliest fall styles. I would get one for myself if I knew how to carry it."

"An autumn hat in July! Will you make poor Yvonne wear it now?"

When they entered the room where the millinery was displayed, they saw Yvonne standing in rapt admiration before the long double row of hats that the milliner's man had taken out of his boxes. In her hand she held a large shaggy felt, trimmed with rosettes of velvet. The little girl was fingering it lovingly.

"I have never had a hat," she explained, "only hoods and sunbonnets, but my new friend, she desires that I have one for the winter, and it will indeed be a pleasure. I could never wear a couvre-chef like an old woman. I do not see these plain, but they feel so soft."

"Put it on, Yvonne, you look so sweet."

So Yvonne put it on, and after trying one or two others, Martine still preferred the first one. Accordingly it was packed in a large box, and Martine carried it to the hotel, where Yvonne was to stay until Mrs. Redmond and her party should start for Little Brook.

The afternoon was warm. Mrs. Redmond went down to the edge of the Bay to finish a sketch that she had begun in the morning. Amy and Priscilla sat on the piazza, lazily watching the passers-by, and commiserating the men mowing grass in the meadow across the road that lay between them and the sea.

Martine roamed about the house with Yvonne clinging closely to her, and at last sat down for an hour in the parlor, to hear Yvonne sing some of her plaintive songs.

After their early tea Alexandre came to claim Yvonne, and the two girls fell on each other's necks in a farewell embrace. Though they were less demonstrative in their expression, Amy and Mrs. Redmond, and Priscilla too, felt some emotion at parting with their new friend.

"It isn't a real good-bye," whispered Martine to Yvonne; "I know that Mrs. Redmond will help me carry out those plans I spoke of. So au revoir."

From Meteghan to Little Brook they were to drive eight miles,—at least, all but Amy were to drive, while she, as before, was to wheel beside the carriage.

"You will stay in Little Brook a week," said the two Connecticut teachers, bidding them good-bye. "Don't forget the Hotel Paris. It's smaller than this," they added, smiling, "but you will find it entertaining in every way."

"We can't stay a week," Mrs. Redmond had replied; "already we need our trunks."

"And our letters," added Priscilla.

"Yes, they are waiting for us in Digby. You see this side trip to Clare was as unexpected as it has been pleasant."

But the farewells were at last all said, and with only one backward glance at the landlady and her children, the teachers, and the commercial traveller, the four turned their faces toward Petit Ruisseau,

... "'when brightly the sunset Lighted the village street.'"

sang Amy as they rode along. "Don't you remember that in 'Evangeline,' Priscilla?" she asked, for she was riding close to the carriage.

"It sounds familiar. We must find time to read Longfellow while we are at Little Brook."

"Yes, indeed; but now—"

Amy did not finish the sentence, for the driver started up his horse, and to show that she did not intend to be outridden she increased her own speed, and soon was out of hearing of the others. It was a beautiful evening. The gaily painted houses of Meteghan, and even those that were dazzling white, all suggested the toy dwellings of the Christmas shops. Amy greatly enjoyed the scene as she pedalled along. A girl standing in one doorway, knitting busily, called out a cheerful salutation, which Amy returned.

At one corner was a little shop, where a few men in blue jeans had gathered to talk after their day's work. Soon Meteghan was far behind, and Amy had passed the great white church of Saulnierville. As she was still some distance ahead of the carriage, she dismounted to speak to a group of children playing some kind of a dancing game, to which they sang an accompaniment. Making an effort to understand the words that they sang to the merry air, she discovered that their French was unlike hers.

A little farther on she noticed a boy walking along with the help of a crutch. Her first glance made her think of Fritz, whom a slight accident had once obliged to limp about in this same way. Something in the boy's face when she looked at him a second time rather startled her. He certainly resembled Fritz.

"I wonder if he is really lame, or if this crutch means only that he has had some slight accident." This was her thought.

Dismounting, she turned back to the little boy.

"How far is it to Little Brook?"

"Oh, not very far on a wheel."

"A mile?" again ventured Amy.

"About a mile—perhaps."

Amy looked back. The carriage was so far behind that it was hardly worth while for her to hurry on toward the Hotel Paris. Moreover, if she knew just where the house was, she would not care to reach it ahead of her mother and the others; so she walked along with the boy.

Although less talkative than some of the older Acadians whom she had met, he was not at all shy, this little Pierre, who, after telling her his name, confidently asked her hers.

"You speak good English," Amy said in compliment.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, we are taught English in school; we must learn it, we Acadians. One often meets the English." The last was said with a condescending air, amusing enough in one who was born a subject of the Queen of England. "But you," continued Pierre, "are not English. You are American,—is it not so?"

"Yes, Americans from the United States."

"Ah! they are strange, the Americans; you are going, perhaps, to the Hotel Paris?"

"Yes, but how did you know?"

"Because it is the only place where Americans stay. So late, you would be going somewhere. It is a good house, but Madame who keeps it has had a death there to-day."

This piece of news disturbed Amy.

"A death! I must tell my mother. She is behind, in the carriage."

"You need not wait for it. It will soon overtake you if you walk with me," said Pierre, sadly, glancing down at his crutch.

When, however, the carriage did overtake the two, they were not far from the Hotel Paris. Mrs. Redmond heard what Pierre had to say about the death of the landlady's sister, and when she learned that it was the result of an accident received some years before, she felt less concern than at first about approaching the house.

"It is unlikely, however, that Madame will wish us to stay there."

"Oh, she is not so," interposed Pierre; "she will always take money when it comes to her."

"But I do not like to stay where there is a death," interrupted Martine.

Priscilla made no comment. But Mrs. Redmond was undisturbed. It was now almost dark, and to return to Meteghan would mean a tiresome and probably cold ride. Pierre asserted that there was no other house where they could stay in Little Brook, and it was doubtful if there was any room at Church Point.

"We must at least see Madame Bourque at the hotel. A message was sent her last night, asking her to reserve rooms for us, and perhaps she can help us out of our difficulty," said Mrs. Redmond.

To the great surprise of all, the Hotel Paris, when they reached it, proved to be but a small dwelling-house, larger than its neighbors, but even smaller than the inn at Meteghan, for which "hotel" seemed a misnomer. As the four sat in the little parlor, Madame Bourque, a dignified and even elegant appearing woman, in her black gown and black couvre-chef, tried to make them feel comfortable.

"Ah, but the death, it makes no difference," she said, after assuring Mrs. Redmond that the rooms were in readiness. "It is my sister who has been long sick, and was glad to go. Indeed I am sorry that you heard of it, for the funeral will be before you wake in the morning, and had I thought it would disturb Madame, why, we might indeed have had it to-day."

"Business before pleasure," whispered Martine to Amy, who was trying valiantly to keep from smiling,—a difficult task, indeed, for any of the four.

As they seemed to have no choice in the matter, the girls agreed with Mrs. Redmond that they could hardly do better than take possession of the large, pleasant rooms that Madame Bourque showed them.

In the early morning, a gray morning, before the others were awake, Amy looked from the window. A sad little procession was setting out from the door. The plain deal coffin was in an open wagon. Behind it were a dozen shabby carriages, with mourners, men and women. They were to drive to the churchyard at Point à l'Église, three miles away. She did not waken the others, but she watched the little procession until it was out of sight.

pierre and point à l'église

"Ah, why should she wish to see you, the American young lady? You have much conceit, Pierre."

The words were French, the voice was Madame Bourque's, and Amy, quickly translating what she overheard, perceived that Madame Bourque was throwing obstacles in the way of the little boy's seeing her.

"Madame Bourque," she cried, stepping out into the hall, "I asked him to come to see me. It is as he says."

"Oh, then excuse me, Mademoiselle. I did not understand. I did not know that you had seen Pierre."

"Ah, yes, he helped me find my way last evening. He may come in, may he not?"

"Ah, surely, since you wish it. Pierre talks much, and I have known those whom he tired. But enter, Pierre, since you have been invited."

Then Pierre followed Amy into the little sitting-room, where Priscilla and Martine were already seated near an open fire; for the gray and damp early morning had introduced a foggy day, and at present sightseeing was out of the question. Priscilla had been writing letters, Amy had been reading a history of the Acadians, and Martine, before Pierre's arrival, had been looking through "Evangeline."

"Pierre," Amy asked, not knowing just what to say to the old-fashioned boy, "do you care for 'Evangeline'?"

"Surely, yes," he replied, his face lighting up. "Your Longfellow has sympathy for the Acadians. A lady who stayed here last summer lent me his poems, but best I understand the 'Evangeline.'

"'Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers. Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the wayside, Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses!'"

Pierre recited with much expression.

"Ah," he continued, "I can say much of that beautiful poem, and indeed it makes me weep to think how they were treated, those poor Acadians, my ancestors. The English were most cruel."

"Amy," half-whispered Martine, "my history is a little rusty, so please tell me if the Acadians were driven out from Little Brook."

"No, my dear, Little Brook was founded by some who made their way back from exile. Pierre," she added in a louder tone, "you are so interested in your people, can you tell us about those who founded Little Brook?"

"Yes, Pierre can tell you all the story," interposed Madame Bourque, who had entered the room to put wood on the fire. "He knows it all from his grandmother, and he remembers."

Pierre, thus commended, flushed even more deeply than he had when Amy made her request; but he remained silent until she spoke again.

"Perhaps it is not everything that you would wish to hear," he said, "that I shall tell; but my grandmother told me that it was all forest in Clare when the Acadians were driven from their homes by the cruel English. There were no farms here then, and so Petit Ruisseau has no sad memories of poor people driven from their homes. But you know that Acadians from Annapolis and Grand Pré and other places farther north were carried off to the English settlements that are now the States, and were treated like beggars; for they had no money, and spoke but a strange tongue. Fathers were separated from children, and brothers and sisters were not often in the same ship. But all were strong in their hearts, and determined to come back to their beautiful Acadia. Some began to come back before the Peace, and walked all the way—hundreds and hundreds of miles—from Boston and New York, until they reached the coast of the Bay. When the war was over, and there was a great Peace, many, many more came, and walked all the way around from New Brunswick to Nova Scotia to find their homes again."

"But I thought that all their houses were burned and that they had no homes to return to."

"That is true; but some knew not this, and even those who had seen the fires from the ships did not believe that everything of theirs was destroyed. So they were very sad when they could find no signs of their old homes, and saw that everything belonged to the English settlers. It was a great crime, sending them away, oh, so many; I am proud my great-great-grandparents were exiles and my great-grandmother was born in Salem; so perhaps I am half Yankee; that's why I speak some English."

At that moment Madame Bourque took part in the conversation. "Ah, it is terrible to think of their sufferings, people of such worth,—it is the crime of history. Just think of Belliveau; you tell about him, Pierre."

"Oh, he was very brave, and the first exile to land in Clare. He and his wife came across the bay in a little boat, bringing their baby too, and they landed safely on the shore that you can see from the window. They had a terrible passage—and to think to-day that some people fear to cross the bay to St. John, even in a steamboat! At first they did have nothing, but they cut wood, and soon other Acadians joined them who had walked all the way around on land."

"Pierre," interposed Amy, "you describe things very well; what do you intend to be when you grow up?"

A shadow crossed Pierre's face. "I should like to be a sailor, and then a great captain, but I am not strong enough, and I shall never grow big; so I think I may be a teacher, and that is why I take trouble to speak and write English."

"You should be here," interrupted Madame Bourque, whose mind still dwelt on the Acadians, "on the fifteenth of August; that is the day of the return from exile that all the people in Clare celebrate."

"We shall hardly be in this part of the country then, Madame Bourque," responded Amy, "but we shall try to know all we can about the early Acadians before we leave Little Brook. But, Pierre," added Amy, "you haven't told us all that you know, have you? Haven't you some stories that your mother or grandmother has told you?"

"One about the cane I like much."

"Then tell it to us."

"Well, there was one of our family, a great-grand-uncle, I think, who lived down near Cape Sable before the exile; one time he was very kind to a shipwrecked captain and took him into his house and gave him clothes and food; then when my relative was driven from home they took him to Boston, and he had to wander about, begging his bread, for he could not speak English. And then he and his three sons with him were put in jail; then the captain whom he had been kind to heard that these Frenchmen were in jail, and, remembering the kindness he had had, went to visit the prisoners. How surprised he was to find his old acquaintance who had helped him after the shipwreck! My relative was glad to see him too. Then the captain went to the governor and told him about the kind Frenchman who was in jail, and the governor said to bring him before him and perhaps he would pardon him. As my relative had no clothes fit to wear before the governor, the captain bought him a beautiful suit and a cane with a large head. Then the governor, when he saw my grandfather, pardoned him and his three sons, and they stayed in Boston several years, until the Peace, when they all came back to Nova Scotia. I know this story is true, because I have seen the cane, which one of my cousins owns in Pubnico."

"Do you think that is true?" whispered Priscilla to Martine.

"Oh, true enough; it certainly is not very exciting. It has been handed down so long that the point is evidently lost."

Pierre, once started, continued to tell many stories of the hardships borne by the early Acadians, beside which the tale of Evangeline seemed almost cheerful.

"Now, Priscilla," said Martine, when Pierre paused, "you must admit that the English don't show themselves in a very good light compared with the Acadians. Did you ever hear of such cruelty?"

"There must have been some cause for it," rejoined Priscilla, stoutly; "we have heard only one side thus far. Perhaps the Acadians themselves were a little in the wrong."

"They certainly were not perfect," interposed Amy, taking part in the discussion, "as you will admit when you have read their history more carefully. We have not time to go into things more fully now, and I have thought that Grand Pré would be the best place for our study of the causes leading to the exile. It's putting the cart before the horse to talk too much of the effects before we know the causes."

Had Pierre exactly understood Amy he might have entered into a discussion with her, but for the moment he had run to the front door to admit Madame Bourque's little daughters, whom he had seen entering the yard. When he was again in the room Madame Bourque once more joined the group.

"How does it happen, Madame Bourque," asked Martine, mischievously, "that your hotel is the Hotel Paris? You should have named it 'Acadia' or 'Evangeline,' or something like that."

"Ah," responded Madame Bourque, "it is that my husband is a Frenchman, from Paris, and I like my children not to forget that. Some day, when they grow up, they shall go to Paris."

"Have Acadians any real love for France?" asked Amy. "It is certainly a long, long time since their ancestors left it."

"Yes, indeed," replied Madame Bourque, "just as the Englishman always loves England, or the Irishman Ireland; they are still strangers in a strange land, though they must call the English Queen their queen," she concluded sentimentally. "Some Acadians go back to France to study, and some French boys come out to the college at Church Point, and one of them—ah, it is so romantic!—married an Acadienne a few years ago."

"Oh, tell us about it," exclaimed Martine; "I love anything romantic."

"Well, then," said Madame Bourque, "there was such a pretty girl at Church Point in the convent, and this youth was sent by his parents to study at the College of St. Anne. He fell in love with the pretty girl and would marry her, and oh, his father and mother they felt so bad, for they thought Acadians were something like Indians; and so they hurried out to Nova Scotia, and when they saw the girl they fell in love with her too, and knew she was no savage, and say their son can marry her. But the girl would not leave her people, and as the son would not give up the girl, the parents decided to come to Acadia to live, for he was an only son and they were rich. So they have bought much land up beyond Weymouth, and they call it New France. They have a great mill where they cut timber, and a railroad of their own twenty miles long, by which they send it to the sea, and good houses and electric lights—all on account of a pretty Acadienne."

"That's just the kind of story I like," cried Martine. "I suppose history is just as true, but someway I have more interest in things that are happening to-day."

Madame Bourque now left the room to make arrangements for the early dinner. She had foretold that the fog would lift before noon, and accordingly Priscilla, looking out the window, was not surprised to catch a fleeting glimpse of the sun through an opening in the veil of mist.

"We'll take your word that the sun will shine," exclaimed Amy, "and I'll run upstairs and ask mamma if she will drive this afternoon. I imagine that the most there is to be seen is at Church Point, and the sooner we go there the better."

Madame Bourque, when asked, promised to have two carriages ready early in the afternoon, for Amy had not only invited Pierre to dinner, but intended to take him to drive with her.

"Mamma," said Amy, as she gave her mother an account of the morning, "you will find Madame Bourque very amusing. She evidently believes the Acadians to be the salt of the earth; but though I sympathize with their sufferings, I do not believe they were quite the superior beings that she paints them."

"It might be unkind," replied Mrs. Redmond, "to suggest that this is part of her stock in trade; the more remarkable she can represent the old Acadians to have been, the more interested will her guests be in the places associated with them. They were a good, honest people."

"But they were peasants, were they not, mamma? You would think to hear her talk that they were very near nobility."

"Oh, among the Acadians of to-day are doubtless many descendants of men of good family in France. Indeed, some of them can claim for ancestors Charles de la Tour and Baron D'Entremont; but the peasant blood is in the ascendant, and the strain of nobility must be very slight."

At the dinner-table Pierre won Mrs. Redmond's heart by the gentleness of his manner, and she told Martine that Amy's protégé would be a close rival of hers.

"No, indeed," replied Martine; "no one can rival Yvonne. Just think of her voice and her little curls and her pink cheeks."

"I'll admit that Pierre lacks these characteristics, though all in all they would hardly enhance his value. From what Amy says, however, I should judge that Pierre, even if he has neither curls nor pink cheeks, has a voice that is very effective when he uses it in telling stories."

Fearing that Pierre might overhear these personalities, Mrs. Redmond changed the conversation. "Amy," she said in a somewhat louder voice, "where do you suppose Fritz is now?"

"Oh, if Pubnico is as fascinatingly French as he expected it to be, he is probably there still. I doubt if he will be better entertained than we have been."

"I almost wish he were with us," rejoined Mrs. Redmond, "for he is always a fund of entertainment in himself; I have thought of him many times this dull morning, and I hope that we shall find a letter from him awaiting us at Digby."

If Amy agreed with her mother, she did not so express herself at this moment; yet if the truth were known, it must be said that more than once since their parting at Yarmouth she had regretted that she had not at least given Fritz a chance to join their party.

When the carriages came to the door in the afternoon Amy recognized them as having formed part of the funeral procession; they were shabby, with hard seats, and the horses, as well as the vehicles, looked as if they had seen better days. It was arranged that Amy and Pierre should go in the small carriage, as Madame Bourque's husband assured them that the horse was perfectly safe for a lady to drive. "Ah, he could not run away!"

"I should think not," said Amy. "If he manages to carry us even the three miles to Church Point I shall be surprised; he seems so dispirited that I imagine the funeral has made more impression on him than on Madame Bourque herself."

Mrs. Redmond, Priscilla, and Martine were in the second carriage, and Madame Bourque was the driver.

Amy noticed in gardens and windows fewer hollyhocks, oleanders, and other bright flowers than she had seen at Meteghan. The houses, too, were painted in less bright colors, and the village street had a less stirring appearance.

Pierre was a good cicerone; he pointed out near the edge of the sea the spot where the first of the returning exiles had landed. He also showed Amy a little one-story house on a slight elevation, said to be the oldest in the town, and to date but little later than the landing.

"It is hard," he said in his precise way, "to imagine that it was all forest here in those first years, since now there is hardly a tree in sight except the fruit trees in the orchards. The first comers had large grants of land from the government; thus the English tried to make up for the wrong they had done."

"But the farms are very small now," ventured Amy. "The yards are so close together."

"Ah, yes, that is it; each father had many children and divided his land among his sons, and as every one wanted his house to be on the village street, they have kept it up, cutting it up into long narrow strips, some of them running back one or two miles; and away at the end of the strips there are still forests that are worth money."

Some time before they reached Church Point, the lighthouse and the college buildings were seen in imposing outline in the distance.

Their horse justified Amy's forebodings, and when they overtook Madame Bourque and her party the latter were standing near a monument before the large building that Pierre had said was the College of St. Anne. Amy, though undisturbed by Martine's gibes at the slowness of her steed, was glad enough to get out of the carriage. Both horses were left in charge of a boy whom Madame Bourque knew, while the sight-seers started to walk to the shrines of the Acadians—for by this term did Madame Bourque describe the burying-ground and site of the early houses.

"It is not a long walk," the voluble Frenchwoman had explained, "unless you go out to the lighthouse, for which we have not time to-day."

Priscilla lingered behind the others to copy the inscription on the monument. It was in honor of the Abbé Sigogne, to whom the Acadians of Clare owe more than to any other one person.

Priscilla, reading the inscription, wondered why she had never before heard of this man, who evidently had been so much to his own people. Acadia is not far from Massachusetts, and yet already she realized that this was a corner of the world of which she knew far too little. Amy, however, could tell her what she wished to know, and she hurried on to join the others, who were now far ahead.

"Amy," she cried, overtaking her friend, "tell me something about the Abbé Sigogne; I am ashamed to say that I never heard of him before."

Pierre glanced at the American girl with an expression of absolute amazement at her ignorance.

"There is so much to tell," said Amy, "that it would be too long a story for the time that we have now; yet as we walk along I can give you a little idea of his work. He was a French priest of good family, who barely escaped losing his head during the French Revolution. After fleeing from France he lived a few years in England. When he heard that the poor Acadians of Clare were without a clergyman, he decided to go to them, and from that time he made their lot his. This was in 1799, about thirty years after their return from exile, and though they had cleared the forest and built houses, they had made little progress in other ways; they were without schools and almost without religion, but the good Abbé built them a church, established schools, and made frequent visits to all the little settlements along St. Mary's Bay, often travelling along the coast in a small, open boat. He taught them many things besides religion. He made them firm in their allegiance to Great Britain, and when he died, in 1844, he was bitterly mourned by all who knew him, whether English or French."

When Amy and Priscilla and Pierre caught up with the others, they were in a large field, looking at a spot of ground on which Madame Bourque said had stood the very first house at Point à l'Église, built after the exile. Near by was a little old graveyard, where the first generation of returning exiles had been buried. Only a few graves were marked, and these with rough stones without inscriptions. A rude arch of whalebone formed the entrance to this little enclosure. It was not very far from the point of land on which stood the lighthouse, near which, along the edge of the sea, a file of black-coated priests was walking. Though they were indistinctly seen in the distance, their large caps and flapping surtouts gave them a picturesque appearance.

A strange structure like a shrine of open slats decorated with spruce boughs attracted Martine's attention, and she insisted on making a sketch of it.

"It is a repository," explained Pierre, politely, "where the priest stands, as a station for the procession, on festival days."

When they returned to the College of St. Anne, Madame Bourque grew more and more eloquent.

"Is it not wonderful," she said, "that all this great building is restored since the fire of two years ago? You will come inside, ladies, and see how pleasant the rooms are."

"I will stay outside," replied Priscilla, "and watch the horses," she concluded rather lamely.

"Nonsense," began Amy, but looking at Priscilla, she saw that the young girl was in earnest, and so insisted no further.

"Amy," whispered Priscilla, as her friend drew near her, "I was sorry afterwards that I went into the convent yesterday, and so I would much rather not go into a priest's house."

"I had no idea that you would be so narrow," rejoined Amy.

"I don't mean to be narrow," responded Priscilla, "but I really don't feel like going inside."

So Priscilla sat down on the grass near the monument and all the others went inside the main building of the College of St. Anne. Not very long afterwards Mrs. Redmond came out again, with her sketch-book in her hand. "I thought it a good time now to make a sketch of the church. I have seen many other schools like this one, for, after all, it's only a boys' boarding-school. The girls enjoy practising their French with the Eudist Father, who is taking them about, and it will probably be some time before they are ready to leave. I think you make a mistake, Priscilla, in not joining them."

"It isn't a very old building," said Priscilla, implying that this was sufficient reason for her staying away from the party.

"It is certainly not very old," rejoined Mrs. Redmond; "the college has been established less than ten years. It is a great thing to have founded it here in the midst of the Acadians, and it has made the boys of Clare much more ambitious."

"What good is a college education to them?" asked Priscilla; "fishing and farming seem to be their chief occupations."

"This is really only a preparatory school," replied Mrs. Redmond, "and the boys who are going into the Church or into the professions enter other colleges in Canada or in France. The Father told us with pride of the high standing of some of the graduates in their work in other colleges."

"If I do not care for the college," said Priscilla, "I love this church of Abbé Sigogne's; it makes me think of a New England meeting-house, with its white walls and steeple."

Mrs. Redmond's sketch was hardly finished when the others came out from the college. Madame Bourque was in her most talkative mood, as she led them across the road into the white church. This time Priscilla went with them and looked with some interest at the paintings on the wall, and the sacred emblems, and the tablet inscribed to the memory of Abbé Sigogne.

Martine, it must be admitted, found something amusing even in this church, for inside the gallery where the choir boys sat were many pictures of little boats, and even of full-rigged ships scratched in deeply with a penknife, presumably by the fingers of mischievous young singers.

Pierre, who happened to be with Martine when she made this discovery, did not laugh with her, but shaking his head solemnly, said, "Ah, those pictures show what really fills the heart of the Acadian boy."

Madame Bourque was disappointed that her party of Americans did not care to visit the girls' school near by, but the hour was late, and the tired-looking horses were not likely to make speed on the way home.

"We have really seen so much," said Mrs. Redmond, "that we shall need to think it all over before seeing more, and you have been so good a guide that in our one visit to Church Point we have learned as much as most persons do in two."

"We have learned a great deal," murmured Priscilla to Amy, "but I always feel that Madame Bourque paints the Acadians as much more remarkable than they are. But I should like to have seen Father Sigogne baptizing Indian pappooses; they say that he used to wipe their faces with his gown to find a spot where he could kiss them."

"Yes, and Madame Bourque says that there are people still living who can remember great crowds of Indians filing through the woods to Church Point that they might receive Abbé Sigogne's blessing on St Anne's Day."

digby days

On the way back to Little Brook Amy had a good chance to talk with little Pierre about his hopes and ambitions. She found that he was extremely fond of reading, and it was almost impossible for him to get books such as a boy loves to read. About half a mile from Madame Bourque's, Pierre pointed out a small cottage which he said was his home.

"My mother will be there now," he said, "and I hope you will come in with me to see her. She does not speak so very good English," he added apologetically, "but she can understand it."

Though Madame Robichaud greeted Amy warmly and thanked her for her kindness to Pierre, there was something pathetic in her manner and appearance. She was a tall, thin woman, with a delicate, pale face that was made all the paler by her plain black gown and the couvre-chef that covered her hair. Her husband, Pierre explained, was lost at sea when Pierre was five years old, and since that time she had supported them both wholly by her own labor.

Madame Robichaud showed Amy with great pride some drawings nailed to the wall that Pierre himself had made,—simple drawings of ships and houses that showed draughtsmanship rather than imagination. These suggested to Amy that Pierre had a talent that might be cultivated to greater advantage than his ambition for school-teaching.

She and Pierre parted reluctantly, and Madame Robichaud promised that the little boy should be at the hotel in the morning before Amy left Little Brook.

All the travellers slept soundly that night despite the huge feather-beds that Madame Bourque had provided, as she thought, for their comfort.

In the morning they wrote their names in her visitors' book, on whose pages were inscribed the names of a number of Americans, some of them fairly well known, who at one time or another had been guests at the Hotel Paris. Pierre arrived very soon after breakfast with a great bunch of hollyhocks or passe-rose for Amy. He had evidently taken a great fancy to his new friend.

"She is more beautiful even than my school-teacher," he had said to Madame Bourque; a compliment which the latter repeated as of especial value, because hitherto Pierre had considered his teacher the model of womanly perfection.

"Martine," said Mrs. Redmond, before the carriage arrived, "have you written to Yvonne?"

"Oh, no; I meant to, but now I'll wait till we reach Digby."

"I fear that Yvonne will be disappointed. She probably expected a letter to-day."

"I know it; I am ashamed of myself."

Martine's tone was penitent, but no one who knew Martine ever expected her to do promptly what she had promised. It was always a little easier to put off things to another day. Priscilla looked at her scornfully, as if to say "How fickle!"

When at last they were ready to start, all felt sad at parting with Madame Bourque and her family, for in two days they had come to seem almost like old friends. The two little Bourque girls, as the carriage drove off, looked with astonishment at the dollar bill that Mrs. Redmond had put in the hands of the elder to divide with her younger sister.

Pierre walked on a little way with Amy before she mounted her wheel, and on saying good-bye at last he knew that the American lady would really send him the books that she had promised.

Their train to Digby was not the famous "Flying Bluenose," but a local that made no pretence of hurrying; it instead gave them ample opportunity to study the scenery from the windows.

When at last they reached Digby, they were warm and dust-covered, and glad enough, too, when they found carriages waiting for them at the station.

"It's nothing but a summer resort, this Digby that we have heard so much about," complained Martine, as they drove along the main street. "Just look at those boys in golf suits, and that crowd carrying shawls and wraps as if bound for a sailboat. Why, the town doesn't even look English. It makes me think of Blue Harbor in Maine, where we spent one summer."

"I noticed a great deal of Philadelphia accent while we were waiting for our trunks at the station."

"Oh, don't mention it," replied Martine; "Philadelphians flock everywhere, and they are so cliquey that they just spoil a place for me, though I'll admit that they know a good thing when they see it."

"Be careful, Martine," cautioned Amy; "no more slang than you can help on this trip."

"'On this trip!' If that isn't slang I'd like to know what is."

"No matter now; here's the hotel; mail first and rooms afterwards."

In an instant Amy had hurried to the hotel office, returning to the others with a bundle of letters, which she gave to Priscilla to distribute while she went ahead with her mother to look at the rooms they had engaged. The hotel was like most small summer hotels, and in spite of their pleasant remembrance of Clare, Mrs. Redmond and the girls had to admit that it was more comfortable than the little French houses.

"'Pubnico!' why, of course;" here Amy stopped as she held the letter in her hand, turning it over once or twice as people will before opening a letter.

"Of course; don't hesitate to tell us that it's from Fritz. It would be very strange indeed if he had not written," cried Martine, mischievously.

"'Pubnico,'" said Priscilla, as if the word had just penetrated her brain; "why, there were two letters with that postmark, were there not?"

"Oh, no, only one," replied Amy, promptly, "and, as Martine surmises, it was from Fritz."

But while Amy was speaking Priscilla looked sharply at Martine, and Martine, as if uncomfortable under her gaze, suddenly left the room.

After dinner, as they all sat on the piazza, "Amy," said Mrs. Redmond, "you haven't told us yet how Fritz is enjoying his journey."

"Oh, he thinks he has found the only French in Nova Scotia. He describes their dress and their houses and their great fat oxen, and speaks of the misfortunes of the exiled Acadians as if he were an original discoverer. How foolish he will feel when he finds that what he has seen is old news to us, for his description reads just like a description of Clare."

"Only I'll warrant that he didn't find any Madame Bourque," and Priscilla smiled.

"No, nor an Yvonne," added Martine.

"Not to speak of Pierre," concluded Amy.

"My letter from home," said Priscilla, "mentions that this was the hottest week of the season. Just think, only yesterday we were half frozen driving home in the fog from Church Point."

After breakfast, on their second morning at Digby, Mrs. Redmond and the girls walked the whole length of the tree-lined main street. As Martine had surmised, they had indeed arrived at a regulation summer resort. The holiday spirit prevailed on all sides; every one was going somewhere, or had just been somewhere, on pleasure bent.

In spite of her professed prejudice against Philadelphians, Martine almost fell into the arms of a former schoolmate from the Quaker City, who rushed out to greet her from the garden of a small hotel near the top of the hill.

"Isn't the view fine, and the air just perfect? I'm so glad you're here; there's something to do every hour of the day, and we shall be so glad to have you join us, you and your friends." And she glanced dubiously at Priscilla's mourning dress and serious face.

"Thank you, but I can't make plans just now. There are four in our party; the other two have walked ahead. We arrived only on Saturday, and yesterday was so rainy that we stayed indoors until evening, when we all went to church. Until we really have our bearings I don't think that I can make any plans. But you must come to see us. There, I haven't introduced you to Priscilla; you must excuse me. Priscilla, the Rose of Plymouth, let me introduce you to Peggy Pratt from the quiet city of Philadelphia."

"You are the same old Martine," cried Peggy, as they turned away, while Priscilla, reddening, added as the two walked on, "Oh, Martine, how silly you can be!"

Amy was delighted with everything that they saw in the course of that morning walk, from the beautiful view of the Basin, surrounded by hills that looked mountains, to the little fish-houses, the quintessence of neatness, in front of which quantities of cod were drying. As to the Basin, when she said she felt as though she had seen it before, Mrs. Redmond reminded her that it resembled closely the harbor of Santiago, with which she was familiar through pictures.

"Ah, yes," rejoined Amy, "and that little opening into the Bay of Fundy that they call 'The Gut' is like the passage where Hobson tried to sink the Merrimac."

"It isn't such a very little passage; somebody told me that it is nearly a mile wide; it was there that the ships of De Monts entered the Basin in 1604, when they discovered Acadia," Mrs. Redmond added.

"Sixteen hundred and four!" cried Martine. "Oh, dear, we're going backwards in our history. It was seventeen hundred and something when the Acadians were expelled, and I shall never be able to remember earlier dates."

"At present we may put dates aside. For a day or two we can merely enjoy ourselves."

"I hope we are coming to some English history," said Priscilla; "I am tired of the French. I always supposed Nova Scotia was a British province, but this whole week we have heard very little about the English."

"I tell you what we'll do, Priscilla," cried Amy; "while mamma and Martine sit here to make a sketch of something or other, you and I can set out in search of some English history. Undoubtedly there's an historic house or two to discover. That's the kind of thing I never let escape me."

At first it seemed as if Amy's search would be unsuccessful. One person after another whom she asked said that there were no historic houses in Digby.

"There's an old shop over across the way," one added, "the frame of which, they say, was brought out from England; I'll point it out to you, though it doesn't look very old."

This last statement was true enough, for the old house had been reshingled and reclapboarded and repainted, so that it retained hardly a vestige of antiquity in its appearance. To compensate Amy for her disappointment, the obliging native made a suggestion that in the end proved valuable.