from taking the step, giving
the characteristic reason that he did not want her to become a servant
of the detested English, but before his letter reached France, the girl
landed in Quebec, and thus the course of Batoche's destiny was changed.
His daughter was bright, intelligent and good looking, and received at
once advantageous offers of situations in several of the best families
of the capital, but the old man would not listen to any proposition of
the kind.

"Come with me, into the woods," he said to her. "We will live there
happily together. I don't want an Englishman to set his eyes upon you. I
am still able to work. You will help me. We shall want for nothing."

And he took her into his lonely habitation beside the Falls of
Montmorenci, where in effect the two spent a tranquil, easy existence.
At the end of three years, the son of a farmer of Charlesbourg fell in
love with the girl, and spite of his attachment, Batoche consented to a
marriage between them. It was a rude blow when the bride went forth from
his cabin to take up her residence in her husband's house, about twelve
miles away, but the sacrifice was generously made, and when ten or
eleven months later, a grandchild was born to him, Batoche felt that he
had received sufficient compensation for his loss.

"Little Blanche will live with me," he said, "and replace her mother."

He did not know how sad was the prophecy that he uttered.

XI.

DEATH IN THE FALLS.

It was a beautiful summer evening. The young mother, having recovered
from her illness, decided that her first visit should be to the cabin of
her old father, and, of course, the baby went with her. After resting
awhile, and receiving the caresses of the hermit, the daughter, with the
child in her arms, wandered about the familiar environs to enjoy once
more all the pleasures attached to her old home. It was a beautiful
summer evening. The forest was charged with perfume; a thousand birds
fluttered from branch to branch; the earth was spangled with an endless
variety of wild flowers; brilliant insects flashed and buzzed in the
slanting beams of the sunset; the whole air gently undulated in a
rhythmic wave that disposed the soul to revery and prayer. The young
woman felt this influence, without, of course, being able to define it,
and yielding to its sway, she wandered farther than she had intended, or
than her bodily strength justified, from the hut of her father. It was
so delightf