is Jean. He thinks my Francois too
poor for his Josephte, and he is for ever planning to discourage their
love. Grand Dieu, he is proud! Yet his father and I were good friends
when we were both boys. He wants Mlle. Josephte to take the American."

"Reassure yourself; that will never be. No, Bonhomme, trust to me; that
shall never he," exclaimed Chamilly.

"How did you come to know these parties, sir," he put in English. But
without awaiting an answer he continued: "Benoit is crazy to marry his
daughter to that rowdy. Benoit was always rather off on the surface, but
he has usually been shrewder at bottom. Cuiller infatuates him. He
hasn't a single antecedent, but has been treating Benoit so much to
liquor and boasting, that the foolish man follows him like a dog."

"My son has been to Montreal,--he has done business," said the Bonhomme
with pride--"he is a good young man--and he had plenty of money before
he lost it on the journey."

"How did he lose his money?"

"Some one stole it. He was coming down to marry Josephte. If he had had
his money Jean would have let her take him.--But he can earn more."

"There was a mysterious robbery of Francois' money on the steam boat a
couple of weeks ago," said Chamilly in English again, "I shall have to
lend him some to set him up in business here, but mustn't do it till
after my election."

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE IDEAL STATE.

The air, meanwhile, had been losing its dampness and the mist
disappearing, when Haviland drew up his rod and threw it into the boat,
and called upon his friend to turn and look at the sunrise.

American sunsets and sunrises, owing to the atmosphere, are famous for
their gorgeousness; but some varieties are especially noble. Mountain
ones charm by floods of lights and coloring over the heights and
ravines, to whose character indeed the sky effects make but a clothing
robe, and it is the mountains, or the combination, that speaks. But
looking along this glassy avenue of water, flushed with the reflection,
it was the great sunrise itself, in its own unobstructed fullness,
spreading higher and broader than ever less level country had permitted
the Ontarian to behold it, that towered above them over the reedy
landscape, in grand suffusions and surges of color.

"It is in Nature," said Chamilly, comprehending that Chrysler felt the
scene, "that I can love Canada most, and become renewed into efforts for
the good of her human sons. I feel in the pr