A Sister to Evangeline

nly I could imprison it in my rhyme, would stick in the hearts of our men of Acadie, and live upon their lips, and be sung at every camp and hearth fire, as "à la Claire Fontaine" is sung by the voya

succeeded 2in making the words rhyme fairly and the volatile syllables march at measured pace. The art of verse has never been much practised among us Acadians, and it is a matter of some pride to me

ain to Acadie the Fair"

nd now, having crossed the Gaspereau where it narrows just above tide-water, I h

ople, nestling in her apple-bloom at my feet. There was the one long street, thick-set with its wide-eaved gables, and there its narrow subsidiary lane descending from the slopes upon my left.

dykes, on either side of "the island's" wooded rampart, stretched the glowing miles of the flats; for the tides of Minas were at ebb. How red in the sunset

eir unsleeping eddies boiled and seethed about the grim base of Blomidon. Such tricks does memory serve one th

me a sudden sinking at my heart, as my heart inquired, with unseasonable pertinence, by what right I continued to call Grand Pré "home"? The

an de Mer, Sieur de Briart, was on the Ohio, fighting the endless battle of France in the western wildernesses. His one son, my one cousin, the taciturn but true-hearted Marc, was with his father, spending himself in the same quarrel. I thought with a longing tenderness of these two-the father full of high faith in the triumph of New France, the son fighting obstinately in what he held a lost cause, caring mainly that his father still ha

ends, loyal friends, would welcome me, I knew. There was Father Fafard, the firm 5and gentle old priest,

poet as to suffer myself to befool myself at times, and get a passing satisfaction out of it. But I always face the fact before I express it in act. I acknowle

llen from a high place at Versailles and been fain to hide himself on an Acadian farm. I thought also of Madame, his wife, a wizened little woman with nothing left, said the village

ndlinesses as they had shown me. As I looked down toward their spacious apple-orchard, 6on the furthest o

achieve

had ever found me somewhat lavish in such light coin. I think I was withheld by the great love unrealized in my heart, which found expression then only in such white reverence as the devotee proffers to his saint. I think, too, I was restrained by the consciousness of a certain girl at Trois Pistoles on the St. Lawrence, who, if I might believe my vanity, loved me, and to whom, if I might believe my conscience, I had given some sort of claim upon my honor. I cared naught for the girl. I had never intended anything but a light and passing affair; but somehow it had not

ell, they were not bedimmed by the much handling which they had endured. They but seemed

ad; 8the finely chiselled nose, not too small for strength of purpose; the full, firm chin-all added to this sweet dignity, which was of a kind to compel a lover's worship. There was enough breadth to the gracious curve below the ear to make me feel that this girl would be a strong man's mate. But the mouth, a bow of tenderness, with a wilful dimple at either delectable corner always lurking, spoke her all woman, too laughing and loving to spend her days in sainthood. Her hair-very thick and of a purply-bronze, near to black-

look, which meant-I knew not what. Indeed, it was ever difficult to observe minutely the other beauties of her face as long as the eyes were turned upon one, so clear an illumination from her spirit shone within their lucid deeps. Hence it was, I suppose, that few could agree as to the colour of those eyes-the many calling them

r as consisted with maidenly reserve. She had seemed ever ready for tales of my adventure, and even for my verses. As I thought of it there dawned now upo

ess that was troublesome, and to quiet it I paused, looking out across the marshes and the tide toward Blomidon. Then for the first time I observed a great bank of cloud that had arisen behind the Cape. It was black and menacing, ragged and fiery along it

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