g her services as nurse.

The St. Mary's people were, almost without exception, of French descent,
and still kept up many of the old French customs of out-door _fetes_ and
ceremonies. Hetty found their joyous, child-like ways and manners
singularly attractive and interesting. After the grim composure, and
substantial, reflective methods of her New England life, the _abandon_
and unthinkingness of these French-Canadians were bewildering and
delightful to her.

"The whole town is every night like a Sunday-school picnic in our
country," she said once to Father Antoine. "What children all these
people are!"

"Yes, daughter, it is so," replied the priest; "and it is well. Does not
our good Lord say that we cannot enter into His kingdom except we become
as little children?"

"Yes, I know," replied Hetty; "but I don't believe this is exactly what
he meant, do you?"

"A part of what he meant," answered the priest; "not all. First,
docility; and, second, joy: that is what the Church teaches."

"Your Church is better than ours in that respect," said Hetty candidly:
"ours doesn't teach joy; it is pretty much all terror."

"Should a child know terror of its mother?" asked Father Antoine. "The
Church is mother, and the Holy Virgin is mother. Ah, daughter! it will
be a glad day when I see you in the beautiful sheltering arms."

Tears sometimes came to Hetty's eyes at such words as these; and good
Father Antoine went with renewed fervor to his prayers for her
conversion.

In the centre of the village was a square laid out in winding paths, and
surrounded by fir trees. In the middle of this square was a great stone
basin, in which a spring perpetually bubbled up; the basin had a broad
brim, on which the villagers sat when they came of an evening to fill
jugs and bottles with the water. On a bright summer night, the circle
would often widen and widen, by men throwing themselves on the ground;
children toddling from knee to knee; groups standing in eager talk here
and there, until it seemed as if the whole village were gathered around
the spring. These were the times when all the village affairs were
discussed, and all the village gossip retailed from neighbor to
neighbor. The scene was as gay and picturesque as you might see in a
little town of Brittany; and the jargon of the Canadian _patois_ much
more confusing than any dialect one would hear on French soil. Hetty's
New England tongue utterly refused to learn this new mode