se healed over; and many a worthless fellow was sent about his
business, as he deserved to be, because Aunt Hibba took his sweetheart
in hand, and made her see the rights of things. If a traveller,
strolling about St. Mary's of a June night, had come upon these
chattering groups, and seen how they centred around the sturdy,
genial-faced woman, in a straight gray gown and a close white cap, he
would have been arrested by the picture at once; and have wondered much
who and what Hetty could be: but if you had told him that she was a
farmer's daughter from Northern New England, he would have laughed in
your face, and said, "Nonsense! she belongs to some of the Orders." Very
emphatically would he have said this, if it had chanced to be on one
of the evenings when Father Antoine was walking by Hetty's side. Father
Antoine knew her custom of lingering at the great spring, and sometimes
walked down there at sunset to meet her, to observe her talk with the
villagers, and to walk home with her later. Nothing could be stronger
proof of the reverence in which the whole village held Hetty, than the
fact that it seemed to them all the most fitting and natural thing that
she and Father Antoine should stand side by side speaking to the people,
should walk away side by side in earnest conversation with each other.
If any man had ventured upon a jest or a ribald word concerning them,
a dozen quick hands would have given him a plunge headforemost into
the great stone basin, which was the commonest expression of popular
indignation in St. Mary's; a practice which, strangely enough, did not
appear to interfere with anybody's relish of the waters.

Father Antoine had an old servant woman, Marie, who had lived in the
Ladeau family since before he was born. She had been by the deathbed of
his mother, his father, his grandmother, and of an uncle who had died
at some German watering-place: wherever a Ladeau was in any need of
service, thither hasted Marie; and if the need were from illness, Marie
was all the happier; to lie like a hound on the floor all night, and
watch by a sick and suffering Ladeau, was to Marie joy. When the young
Antoine had set out for the wildernesses of North America, Marie had
prayed to be allowed to come with him; and when he refused she had wept
till she fell ill. At the last moment he relented, and bore the poor
creature on board ship, wondering within himself if he would be able to
keep her alive in the forests. But a