"Yes, long ago,—ages."
"I heard only this morning," he said, dejectedly, then he brightened, "but it was told to me that it is suspected that the young Bidiane LeNoir will come back to the Bay this summer."
"Indeed,—can that be so?"
"It is quite true, I think. I had it from the blacksmith, whose wife Perside heard it from Célina."
"Who had it from Rose—eh bonn! eh bonn! eh bonn!" (Eh bien!—well, well, well). "The young girl is now old enough to marry. Possibly the Englishman will marry her."
Emmanuel's fine face flushed, and his delicate voice rose high in defence of his adored Englishman. "No, no; he does not change, that one,—not more so than the hills. He waits like Gabriel for Evangeline. This is also the opinion of the Bay. You are quite alone—but hark! is that the train?" and clutching his mail-bag by its long neck, he slipped to the kitchen door, which opened on the platform of the station.
Yes; it was indeed the Flying Bluenose, coming down the straight track from Pointe à l'Eglise, with a shrill note of warning.
Emmanuel hurried to the edge of the platform, and extended his mail-bag to the clerk in shirt-sleeves, who leaned from the postal-car to take it, and to hand him one in return. Then, his duty over, he felt himself free to take observations of any passengers that there might be for Sleeping Water.
There was just one, and—could it be possible—could he believe the evidence of his eyesight—had the little wild, red-haired apostate from up the Bay at last come back, clothed and in her right mind? He made a mute, joyous signal to the station woman who stood in the doorway, then he drew a little nearer to the very composed and graceful girl who had just been assisted from the train, with great deference, by a youthful conductor.