tle to the right, and then stood still, as if looking
at the little pair of exiles from an ancient world--of which the only
vestiges remaining may be found in old Quebec.

This ceremony over, they walked towards Mont Violet, averting their
heads as they passed the Manor Cartier, in a kind of tribute to its
departed master--as a Stuart Legitimist might pass the big palace at
the end of the Mall in London. In the wood-path, Fille took his sister's
hand.

"I will tell you what you are so trembling to hear," he said. "There
they are at peace, Jean Jacques and Virginie--that best of best women."

"To think--married to Virginie Poucette--to think of that!" His sister's
voice fluttered as she spoke. "But entirely. There was nothing in the
way--and she meant to have him, the dear soul! I do not blame her, for
at bottom he is as good a man as lives. Our Judge called him 'That dear
fool, Jean Jacques, a man of men in his way, after all,' and our Judge
was always right--but yes, nearly always right."

After a moment of contented meditation he resumed. "Well, when Virginie
sold her place here and went to live with her sister out at Shilah in
the West, she said, 'If Jean Jacques is alive, he will be on the land
which was Zoe's, which he bought for her. If he is alive--then!' So
it was, and by one of the strange accidents which chance or women like
Virginie, who have plenty of courage in their simpleness, arrange, they
met on that three hundred and sixty acres. It was like the genius of
Jean Jacques to have done that one right thing which would save him in
the end--a thing which came out of his love for his child--the emotion
of an hour. Indeed, that three hundred and sixty acres was his
salvation after he learned of Zoe's death, and the other little Zoe, his
grandchild, was denied to him--to close his heart against what seemed
that last hope, was it not courage? And so, and so he has the reward of
his own soul--a home at last once more."

"With Virginie Poucette--Fille, Fille, how things come round!" exclaimed
the little lady in the tiny bonnet with the mauve strings.

"More than Virginie came round," he replied almost oracularly. "Who,
think you, brought him the news that coal was found on his acres--who
but the husband of Virginie's sister! Then came Virginie. On the day
Jean Jacques saw her again, he said to her, 'What you would have given
me at such cost, now let me pay for with the rest of my life. It is the
great thought