Spoon, his low felt hat tipped over his eyes made Josephte blush crimson with his attentions. Her glances and smiles were to François.
Chrysler as he watched her, saw that it was she whose spiritual expression had attracted him at church. Near at hand, he took notes of her appearance. She was of modest face, regular and handsome in features, though not striking, and her cheek wore just a suggestion of color. Dressed in black, her apparel and demeanor were quietly perfect.
The fine sweep of view from the gallery across the water attracted him, and his eyes rested upon the leafy monarchs shadowing the river-bank before them.
"Your house is well placed," he said in admiration.
"Yes, Monsieur," replied the old man, simply, and he pointed out the various parishes whose spires could be descried across the water.
Thus conversing and observing, the Ontarian spent an instructive and delightful hour. When he rose to go, calm and rested, the hospitality again became profuse. "The gentleman will not walk!" shrilly protested highly-pleased mater familias. "Go François," turning to young Le Brun: "row Monsieur to the Manoir, you and Mr. Cuiller. Take the rose chaloupe, and Josephte shall go too."
Chrysler made a very admirable guest. He would have struck you as a fine, large man, of kindly face, and influential manner, and people pressed upon him their best wherever he went. "You speak our tongue, sir," said the grandfather, "That is a great thing. I have often thought that if all the people of the earth spoke but one speech they would all be brothers. What an absurdity to be divided by mere syllables."
So they parted, with many "Au revoirs" and mutual compliments at the water-side. The willing François planted one foot on a stone in the water and handed the young lady into the boat, and Cuiller hastening for the seat next her, made a pretended accidental lunge of his heavy shoulder at him into the water. François kept his balance and, quite unconscious of the malicious stratagem, held the ill-wisher himself from going over, which he almost did, to Josephte's demure amusement; next Chrysler got in and François essayed to push off. But as the boat stuck in the bottom and refused to stir, he suddenly dropped his hold, and with an "Avance done!" gallantly slushed his way into the water alongside, in his Sunday trousers, lifted the gunwale and started her afloat, amidst a shower of final "Au revoirs," and the rose chaloupe moved with noiseless smoothness down the current.
Peace reigned over every surrounding. The broad, molten-like surface; the dusky idealizing of the lines of cottages and delicate silhouetting of the trees along the shore near them; the artistic picture of the old white farm-house, mystic-looking in the soft evening light, with its shapes of lilac-trees rioting about it and the three great oaks darkening the bank in front; the ghost of light along the distant horizon; the gentle coolness of the air; the occasional far-off echo of some cry; and the regular splash and gleam of the oars as they leave the water or dip gently in again. A fish leaps. An ocean steamer, low in the distance, can be descried creeping noiselessly on. The islands and shores mirror themselves half-distinctly in the water.
A mile above, some boatful of pensive hearts are singing. So calm is the evening that the cadences come distinctly to us, and almost the words can be plainly caught. In a lull of their song, faint sounds of another arrive from far away. Rising and falling, now heard and now not, plaintive and recurring, it is like the voices of spirits.