Bon soir, Madame Oie, Veux tu le blé? Il est à toi!
such a shout of merry laughter is heard as one might willingly go a long way to listen to. When one gives her name, "Thérese le Blanc", our query, "Votre père, est il la Notaire?" strange to say, puzzles her; but she probably is not familiar with a certain famous poem, although our hostess and her daughters have perused it.
As time passes, and she feels better acquainted and at ease with us, Madame M.'s younger daughter amuses us by showing some mischievous tendency; and we conclude she is something of "a tease". In the most artless manner, and without intentional familiarity, she slides her arm through Octavia's in a confidential manner and imparts some important information "dans l'oreille". What is it? Well, remember it is whispered; and now don't go and tell! It is that there is a swain who is Evangeline's special devoted; and the quick blush which rises most becomingly on that damsel's cheek speaks for itself. We have seen for ourselves how
"Many a youth, as he knelt in the church and opened his missal, fixed
his eyes upon her,"
and as our eyes turn to the lovely view of the Bay with its sheltering highlands we can readily imagine how, on just such evenings as this,—
"apart, in the twilight gloom of a window's embrasure, Sat the lovers, and whispered together, beholding the moon rise Over the pallid sea,"
while
"Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossom the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels."
We do not ask if the lover's name is "Gabriel", but earnestly wish her a happier lot than that of the sad heroine of Grand Pré's story.
The sun sinks behind the hills which bound lovely St. Mary's Bay, and we plainly see the two curious openings known as the Grand Passage and Petit Passage, through which the fishermen sail when conveying their cargoes to St. John. The Petit Passage is one mile wide; and passing through this deep strait the hardy fishermen can, in favorable weather, cross to St John in eight to ten hours. These highlands across the Bay, known as Digby Neck and Long Island, are a continuation of the range of mountains terminating in Blomidon on the Minas Basin, and so singularly cut away to make entrance to Annapolis Basin, at St. George's Channel, vulgarly known as Digby Gut.