, with Gobal,
Lafarge, Bissonnette, and another, came knocking at the banker's door,
each carrying a keg on his shoulder and armed to the teeth. And, what
was singular two stalwart police-officers walked behind with comfortable
and approving looks.

A month afterwards Lafarge and Joan were married in the parish church
at Isle of Days, and it was said that Mr. Martin, who, for some strange
reason, was allowed to retain his position in the customs, sent a
present. The wedding ended with a sensation, for just as the benediction
was pronounced a loud report was heard beneath the floor of the church.
There was great commotion, but Tarboe whispered in the curb's ear,
and he blushing, announced that it was the bursting of a barrel. A few
minutes afterwards the people of the parish knew the old hiding-place of
Tarboe's contraband, and, though the cure rebuked them, they roared with
laughter at the knowledge.

"So droll, so droll, our Tarboe there!" they shouted, for already they
began to look upon him as their Seigneur.

In time the cure forgave him also.

Tarboe seldom left Isle of Days, save when he went to visit his
daughter, in St. Louis Street, Quebec, not far from the Parliament
House, where Orvay Lafarge is a member of the Ministry. The ex-smuggler
was a member of the Assembly for three months, but after defeating his
own party on a question of tariff, he gave a portrait of himself to the
Chamber, and threw his seat into the hands of his son-in-law. At the
Belle Chatelaine, where he often goes, he sometimes asks Bissonnette to
play "The Demoiselle with the Scarlet Hose."

ROMANY OF THE SNOWS

I

When old Throng the trader, trembling with sickness and misery, got on
his knees to Captain Halby and groaned, "She didn't want to go; they
dragged her off; you'll fetch her back, won't ye?--she always had a
fancy for you, cap'n," Pierre shrugged a shoulder and said:

"But you stole her when she was in her rock-a-by, my Throng--you and
your Manette."

"Like a match she was--no bigger," continued the old man. "Lord, how
that stepmother bully-ragged her, and her father didn't care a darn.
He'd half a dozen others--Manette and me hadn't none. We took her and
used her like as if she was an angel, and we brought her off up here.
Haven't we set store by her? Wasn't it 'cause we was lonely an' loved
her we took her? Hasn't everybody stood up and said there wasn't anyone
like her in the North? Ain't I done fair by her a