The woman looked so friendly that Amy stopped for a drink of water, and, making use of her best French, she spent a few minutes talking with the woman.
A fine team of oxen hauling an empty hay wagon, beside which walked a strapping youth in blue jeans and a flapping straw hat, was the next reminder to Amy that she was indeed in a foreign country. After she had returned the cheerful bonjour of two or three bareheaded women whom she met trudging along toward a hayfield, Amy was recalled to herself. Her mother and the others were out of sight. "The driver will think that I am not even following;" and making good speed up a long, gradual hill, she saw the carriage waiting for her some distance ahead.
"This way, this way," shouted Martine. The driver waved his whip toward the left, and when Amy caught up, they had changed their direction, and she could feel the soft fresh breeze blowing in from St. Mary's Bay.
"Did you ever see such a clear blue sky?"
"Oh, yes, Martine,"—Amy was thinking of cloudless days on the North Shore,—"but none bluer, perhaps."
"But it seems so foreign," interposed Priscilla, in a tone that expressed some disapproval of foreign things. "I'm not sure that I like it."
"It seems different from other places, though I can't tell why."
"This child is part of the why. Just look at him." Martine pointed to a little boy of about eight, dressed in black, with deep embroidered ruffles of white falling about his wrists, and a broad ruffled collar on his coat. He wore a hat that was something like a tam-o'-shanter, and something like a mortar-board, and he carried a large slate under his arm.
"He's evidently on his way home from school. See the crowd of children behind him."
As the children drew nearer, some stood still, the better to see the party of strangers. Thus the latter had a chance to note various peculiarities of dress and general appearance. One or two little girls wore sunbonnets, one or two wore hats, and several had on their heads black couvre-chefs, that made them look like little old women. The sturdy little boys in blouses were more like other boys, and they indeed were too busy racing and tumbling over one another to pay attention to the travellers.