r the winding Tangipahoa, by narrow clearings,
and the old tracks of forgotten hurricanes, and many a wide
plantation; until more than two hundred miles from the great city,
still northward across the sinking and swelling fields, the low, dark
dome of another State's Capitol must rise amid spires and trees into
the blue, and the green ruins of fortifications be passed, and the
iron roads be found branching west, north, and east.

Thence all was one wide sea of improbability. Even before a quarter of
that distance should have been covered, how many chances of every sort
there were against the success of such a search!

"It is impossible that he should find him," said the ex-governor.

"Well,"--the cure shrugged,--"if he finds no one, yet he may succeed
in losing himself." But in order that Bonaventure in losing himself
should not be lost, the priest gave him pens and paper, and took his
promise to write back as he went step by step out into the world.

"And learn English, my boy; learn it with all speed; you will find it
vastly, no telling how vastly, to your interest--I should say your
usefulness. I am sorry I could not teach it to you myself. Here is a
little spelling-book and reader for you to commence with. Make haste
to know English; in America we should be Americans; would that I could
say it to all our Acadian people! but I say it to you, learn English.
It may be that by not knowing it you may fail, or by knowing it
succeed, in this errand. And every step of your way let your first
business be the welfare of others. Hundreds will laugh at you for it:
never mind; it will bring you through. Yes, I will tell Sosthene and
the others good-by for you. I will tell them you had a dream that
compelled you to go at once. Adieu." And just as the rising sun's
first beam smote the cure's brimming eyes, his "little old man" turned
his face toward a new life, and set forward to enter it.

"Have you seen anywhere, coming back from the war, a young man named
'Thanase Beausoleil?"--This question to every one met, day in, day
out, in early morning lights, in noonday heats, under sunset glows,
by a light figure in thin, clean clothing, dusty shoes, and with limp
straw hat lowered from the head. By and by, as first the land of the
Acadians and then the land of the Creoles was left behind, a man every
now and then would smile and shake his head to mean he did not
understand--for the question was in French. But then very soon it
be