e
in, and tell your tales here, if they're fit to hear, Jo Portugais. Who
are you to say no when ma'm'selle bids!" she added.

Very soon afterwards Jo was inside the post-office, telling his tale
with the deliberation of a lesson learned by heart.

"It's all right, as ma'm'selle knows," he said. "The Cure was there
when ma'm'selle brought a letter to M'sieu' Mallard. The Cure knows all.
M'sieu' come to my house sick-and he stayed there. There is nothing like
the pine-trees and the junipers to cure some things. He was with me
very quiet some time. The Cure come and come. He knows. When m'sieu' got
well, he say, 'I will not go from Chaudiere; I will stay. I am poor,
and I will earn my bread here.' At first, when he is getting well, he is
carpent'ring. He makes cupboards and picture-frames. The Cure has one of
the cupboards in the sacristy; the frames he puts on the Stations of the
Cross in the church."

"That's good enough for me!" said Maximilian Cour. "Did he make them for
nothing?" asked Filion Lacasse solemnly.

"Not one cent did he ask. What's more, he's working for Louis Trudel
for nothing. He come through the village yesterday; he see Louis old and
sick on his bench, and he set down and go to work."

"That's good enough for me," said the saddler. "If a man work for the
Church for nothing, he is a Christian. If he work for Louis Trudel for
nothing, he is a fool--first-class--or a saint. I wouldn't work for
Louis Trudel if he give me five dollars a day."

"Tiens! the man that work for Louis Trudel work for the Church, for all
old Louis makes goes to the Church in the end--that is his will. The
Notary knows," said Maximilian Cour.

"See there, now," interposed Mrs. Flynn, pointing across the street
to the tailor-shop. "Look at that grocer-man stickin' in his head; and
there's Magloire Cadoret and that pig of a barber, Moise Moisan, starin'
through the dure, an'--"

As she spoke, the barber and his companion suddenly turned their faces
to the street, and started forward with startled exclamations, the
grocer following. They all ran out from the post-office. Not far up
the street a crowd was gathering. Rosalie locked the office-door and
followed the others quickly.

In front of the Hotel Trois Couronnes a painful thing was happening.
Germain Boily, the horse-trainer, fresh from his disappointment with the
widow Plomondon, had driven his tamed moose up to the Trois Couronnes,
and had drunk enough whiskey to ma