way when a young
man halted them.

"Good day to you, Mr. Chapdelaine. Good day, Miss Maria. I am in
great luck at meeting you, since your farm is so high up the river
and I don't often come this way myself."

His bold eyes travelled from one to the other. When he averted them
it seemed by a conscious effort of politeness; swiftly they
returned, and their glance, bright, keen, full of honest eagerness,
was questioning and disconcerting.

"Francois Paradis!" exclaimed Chapdelaine.

"This is indeed a bit of luck, for I haven't seen you this long
while, Francois. And your father dead too. Have you held on to the
farm?" The young man did not answer; he was looking expectantly at
Maria with a frank smile, awaiting a word from her.

"You remember Francois Paradis of Mistassini, Maria? He has changed
very little."

"Nor have you, Mr. Chapdelaine. But your daughter, that is a
different story; she is not the same, yet I should have known her at
once."

They had spent the last evening at St. Michel de Mistassini-viewing
everything in the full light of the afternoon: the great wooden
bridge, covered in and painted red, not unlike an amazingly long
Noah's ark; the high hills rising almost from the very banks of the
river, the old monastery crouched between the river and the heights,
the water that seethed and whitened, flinging itself in wild descent
down the staircase of a giant. But to see this young man after seven
years, and to hear his name spoken, aroused in Maria memories
clearer and more lively than she was able to evoke of the events and
sights of yesterday.

"Francois Paradis! ... Why surely, father, I remember Francois
Paradis." And Francois, content, gave answer to the questions of a
moment ago.

"No, Mr. Chapdelaine, I have not kept the farm. When the good man
died I sold everything, and since then I have been nearly all the
time in the woods, trapping or bartering with the Indians of Lake
Mistassini and the Riviere aux Foins. I also spent a couple of years
in the Labrador." His look passed once more from Samuel Chapdelaine
to Maria, and her eyes fell.

"Are you going home to-day?" he asked.

"Yes; right after dinner."

"I am glad that I saw you, for I shall be passing up the river near
your place in two or three weeks, when the ice goes out. I am here
with some Belgians who are going to buy furs from the Indians; we
shall push up so soon as the river is clear, and if we pitch a tent
above the falls c