all the fresh overflow
of her spirit, which, assisted by her new position as postmistress, made
her a conspicuous and popular figure in the parish, where officialdom
had rare honour and little labour, she had prejudices almost unworthy
of her, due though they were to radical antipathy. These prejudices,
one against Jo Portugais and the other against Paulette Dubois, she had
never been able entirely to overcome, though she had honestly tried. On
the way to the hospital at Quebec, however, Jo had been so careful of
her father, so respectful when speaking of M'sieu', so regardful of
her own comfort, that her antagonism to him was lulled. But the strong
prejudice against Paulette Dubois remained, casting a shadow on her
bright spirit.

All this day she had moved about in a mellow dream, very busy, scarcely
thinking. New feelings dominated her, and she was too primitive to
analyse them and too occupied with them to realise acutely the life
about her. Work was an abstraction, resting rather than tiring her.

Many times she had looked across at the tailor-shop, only seeing Charley
once. She did not wish to speak with him now, nor to be near him yet;
she wanted this day for herself only.

So it was that, soon after the Cure and the Seigneur had bade good-bye
to Charley, she left the post-office and went quickly through the
village to a spot by the river, where was a place called the Rest of the
Flaxbeaters. It was an overhanging rock which made a kind of canopy over
a sweet spring, where, in the days when their labours sounded through
the valley, the flaxbeaters from the level below came to eat their meals
and to rest.

This had always been a resort for her in the months when the
flax-beaters did not use it. Since a child she had made the place her
own. To this day it is called Rosalie's Dell; for are not her sorrows
and joys still told by those who knew and loved her? and is not the
parish still fragrant with her name? Has not her history become a living
legend a thousand times told?

Leaving the village behind her, Rosalie passed down the high-road till
she came to a path that led off through a grove of scattered pines.
There would be yet a half-hour's sun and then a short twilight, and the
river and the woods and the Rest of the Flax-beaters would be her
own; and she could think of the wonderful thing come upon her. She had
brought with her a book of English poems, and as she went through the
grove she opened it, and