persuade herself that it was Prosper, beyond
a doubt, and always took his part when the other girls laughed at him.
But this was not altogether a good sign. When a girl really loves,
she does not talk, she acts. The current of opinion and gossip in
the village was too strong for her. By the time of the affair of the
"chopping-down" at Lac des Caps, her heart was swinging to and fro like
a pendulum. One week she would walk home from mass with Raoul. The next
week she would loiter in the front yard on a Saturday evening and talk
over the gate with Prosper, until her father called her into the shop to
wait on customers.

It was in one of these talks that the pendulum seemed to make its last
swing and settle down to its resting-place. Prosper was telling her of
the good crops of sugar that he had made from his maple grove.

"The profit will be large--more than sixty piastres--and with that I
shall buy at Chicoutimi a new four-wheeler, of the finest, a veritable
wedding carriage--if you--if I--'Toinette? Shall we ride together?"

His left hand clasped hers as it lay on the gate. His right arm stole
over the low picket fence and went around the shoulder that leaned
against the gate-post. The road was quite empty, the night already dark.
He could feel her warm breath on his neck as she laughed.

"If you! If I! If what? Why so many ifs in this fine speech? Of whom
is the wedding for which this new carriage is to be bought? Do you know
what Raoul Vaillantcoeur has said? 'No more wedding in this parish till
I have thrown the little Prosper over my shoulder!'"

As she said this, laughing, she turned closer to the fence and looked
up, so that a curl on her forehead brushed against his cheek.

"BATECHE! Who told you he said that?"

"I heard him, myself."

"Where?"

"In the store, two nights ago. But it was not for the first time. He
said it when we came from the church together, it will be four weeks
to-morrow."

"What did you say to him?"

"I told him perhaps he was mistaken. The next wedding might be after the
little Prosper had measured the road with the back of the longest man in
Abbeville."

The laugh had gone out of her voice now. She was speaking eagerly, and
her bosom rose and fell with quick breaths. But Prosper's right arm
had dropped from her shoulder, and his hand gripped the fence as he
straightened up.

"'Toinette!" he cried, "that was bravely said. And I could do it. Yes, I
know I could do it. But, M