The Heir to Grand-Pré

by John Frederic Herbin

"Grace, do you think that he is in bad health? It is a terrible country, even for strong men," asked Marie, looking inquiringly into the face of her friend.

"His last letter does not say why he is returning so soon."

"He must be sick, Grace. That dreadful country, and he has been working so hard."

"I fear he has overworked himself, Marie, and he is compelled to return this year, a year earlier than he first intended."

"If he is not well, my dear father may not see him, even if he returns."

"He would not spend the summer here, and he could not do better than to go to Pierre Island, even in the autumn." As she spoke she laid her hand on Marie's arm, and looked up into her face with a loving expression of countenance.

"I hope he will come," said Marie, without the slightest embarrassment of manner. A soft look came into her eyes as she spoke her thoughts and feelings.

So it was that Marie had in the matured strength of her womanhood unconsciously consecrated her life to her love. Not by deliberate purpose had she done so, but every act and thought of her life were in accord with it, and it was announced in them and dominated her being and controlled her actions. It was akin to worship, yet there was not the slightest element of encouragement in it, so far as she was concerned. She lived happily with her love, nevertheless the forgetfulness of herself, and the disposition on her part to set aside her life for the good of others did not permit her to dwell upon any expectation. She clung firmly to what she had, and lived her years as a precious possession.

In a few more weeks Marie was at home again at Pierre Island, among the rocks and bluffs of Minas Basin. What a loveliness was there in the warm reflections of the sky on the long, bare beaches at low tide. Out along the fringe of the flats she walked as a girl, seeing the beauty of things and places, and feeling the joy of life amid the scenes and objects which before had not so attracted her attention. Her ears were filled with glad sounds. They spoke of the long, lazy fall of the low-tide surf. It sighed through the salmon weir, and overhead soughed in the foliage of the stunted pines, and among the caves and coves of Pierre Island, echoed back with weird loudness from the face of the cliffs. How fresh and clean the breeze came, fanning her face, from the salt tides and briny pools of weed! Where the sand and finer stone had been laid step above step, showing each change of the tide, she walked along the last tide line and marked the gatherings of the sea laid upon the shore. It was all so delightfully real to her now, since she had been away from it so long, and had grown so far into a new life while away. Never before in her absence had she felt the same joy on her return. She was not given to idle dreaming, but she was living in a new life of fresh, maturer years, and she saw the world of her youth, her beautiful world, through the eyes of her love. It tinted everything. She had become a poet in fancy and perception, in the emotional intensity and expansion of her being. Her education and development gave her an intelligent appreciation of the higher poetic qualities of life around her now, and of her place in it. There was suggestion in it, rich thought, and her love crowned it all.

So Marie brought back to Pierre Island a quality she had never before known or seen in it. She did not realize that it came from herself, and that her changed personality had given of itself to every commonplace object. Nor did she know that the strange thrills which came to her in the play of light and color, of harmonious sound upon her sensibilities, were given life and received their peculiar character from the influences of her love and the expectation of the return of Winslow.