his sorrowing wife.

Distressfully the old man put his hand to his forehead, and then
thought reverted to himself, and he recalled the days when his head
was subject to his will and did not, with painful persistency, nod and
tremble the long day through. The infirmity of age was strong upon
him; seventy years is a long time to have lived and toiled as
French-Canadian farmers toil in eastern Canada. He thought, too, how
much he had aged the last seven years, and of the one who had caused
those years to be fraught with so much suffering to them both. He
realized, indeed, that sorrow ages more quickly than years!

"Pierre, Pierre, my son!" he muttered brokenly, "better that you had
never been born, than after reaching manhood's estate to have
forgotten all our teachings and become a drunkard and an outcast from
the Church." A stifled sob from his wife again changed his rambling
thoughts, and painfully rising he walked over to her side. Gently he
laid his hand on the hair that he so dearly loved, although so much
changed, and bending tenderly down said, bravely, trying to check the
tremor in his voice, "There, wife, don't fret." And then he drew her
head to his shoulder in a way he used to do when they were both in the
noonday of life. She remembered, and her grief grew less. "The Virgin
is good, wife, and we have prayed so much to Her about him. Surely She
will hear us, and not let what you fear fall upon our Pierre. Father
Benoit has been praying to Her all these years, and we are told that
the Virgin sooner or later answers the prayers of the priests of our
Church. Then special prayers will be offered for our son to-night by
the priest, for he knows how you feared for him because this was the
last night of the seventh year."

A shudder ran through her frame as the anxious mother started to her
feet and said fearfully:

"Yes, in another hour a new day will dawn, and then seven years will
have passed since our son went to confession, and then the curse may
fall at any time."

Dropping his voice almost to a whisper, and looking with superstitious
dread out of the window into the moonlight, which made the newly
fallen snow glisten on the road with almost supernatural whiteness,
and trying to speak in a tone of conviction, her husband said:

"Perhaps the priest may be right, wife, and this about loup-garou may
not be true. He told us that he did not believe in it, and that the
Church had uttered no such curse against t