r many a long year honourable
names and well-descended families were found among those who bought and
sold and quarrelled and went to law in the spacious marketplace of Le
Bas Canada, with the wide and only partially known or understood
Atlantic rolling between them and the final court of appeal--His Most
Christian _Matie_ in France.

Nothing, it is certain, of this was in Ringfield's mind as he looked at
the steep roof and the stone walls of the house at Lac Calvaire. The
dwelling, like the country surrounding it, held little attraction,
still less what is called romance or glamour for him, for his was not a
romantic nature. Yet neither was he dull, and therefore the aspect of
the house moved him, out of curiosity alone, to skirt the banks of the
reed-fringed lake and find a nearer view of what struck him as unusual.
This was not difficult, as the lake was a short oval in shape, and
before he walked five or six hundred yards he came to the low stone
wall or fence which appeared to completely surround the manor and over
which he soon was desultorily leaning. The garden grew in front of him
somewhat fantastically, with irregular beds marked out with white
stones, and directly facing him was a badly hewn, clumsily scooped
fountain half filled with weeds and dirty water. Behind the house were
trim rows of dark poplars, and there appeared to be a long chain of
barns and other farm buildings extending into the very heart of a dense
plantation of pine. As he looked, still leaning on the low wall, the
place kindled into life and activity. Pigeons came from some point
near and settled on the rim of the fountain. From a door at the side
issued an old woman with a dish in her hand, followed by a couple of
dogs and four cats. These all disappeared among the barns. A minute
later a wagon came lazily along the road, driven by a dark-eyed,
habitant-hatted man who turned in at a gate without taking much notice
of the loiterer. Two plump, dark-eyed servant girls and a little boy
came round the corner of the largest barn; they were apparently dressed
in their best, carried prayer-books, and were evidently on their way to
evening service at St. Ignace, in the handsome church designated by the
heretic Poussette as a "big stone barn full of bad pictures". Finally
there emerged upon the scene, proceeding in a deliberate, dainty,
mincing manner along the garden walk, now rapidly drying in a burst of
fierce August sunshine, the mos