The days passed gaily at Tilly. Amélie carried out the elaborate programme which she had arranged for the amusement of Le Gardeur as well as for the pleasures of her guests.
Every day brought a change and a fresh enjoyment. The mornings were devoted by the gentlemen to hunting, fishing, and other sport; by the ladies to reading, music, drawing, needlework, or the arrangements of dress and ornaments. In the afternoons all met together, and the social evening was spent either at the Manor House or some neighboring mansion. The hospitality of all was alike: a profusion of social feeling formed, at that day, a marked characteristic of the people of New France.
The Lady de Tilly spent an hour or two each day with her trusty land steward, or bailli, Master Coté, in attending to the multifarious business of her Seigniory. The feudal law of New France imposed great duties and much labor upon the lords of the manor, by giving them an interest in every man's estate, and making them participators in every transfer of land throughout a wide district of country. A person who acquired, by purchase or otherwise, the lands of a censitaire, or vassal, was held to perform foi et hommage for the lands so acquired, and to acquit all other feudal dues owing by the original holder to his seigneur.
It was during one of these fair summer days at Tilly that Sieur Tranchelot, having acquired the farm of the Bocage, a strip of land a furlong wide and a league in depth, with a pleasant frontage on the broad St. Lawrence, the new censitaire came as in duty bound to render foi et hommage for the same to the lady of the Manor of Tilly, according to the law and custom of the Seigniory.
At the hour of noon, Lady de Tilly, with Le Gardeur, Amélie, and Pierre Philibert, in full dress, stood on a dais in the great hall; Master Coté sat at a table on the floor in front, with his great clasped book of record open before him. A drawn sword lay upon the table, and a cup of wine stood by the side of it.
When all was arranged, three loud knocks were heard on the great door, and the Sieur Tranchelot, dressed in his holiday costume, but bareheaded and without sword or spurs,—not being gentilhomme he was not entitled to wear them,—entered the door, which was ceremoniously opened for him by the majordomo. He was gravely led up to the dais, where stood the lady of the Manor, by the steward bearing his wand of office.
The worthy censitaire knelt down before the lady, and repeating her name three times, pronounced the formula of foi et hommage prescribed by the law, as owing to the lords of the Manor of Tilly.
“My Lady de Tilly! My Lady de Tilly! My Lady de Tilly! I render you fealty and homage due to you on account of my lands of the Bocage, which belong to me by virtue of the deed executed by the Sieur Marcel before the worthy notary Jean Pothier dit Robin, on the day of Palms, 1748, and I avow my willingness to acquit the seigniorial and feudal cens et rentes, and all other lawful dues, whensoever payable by me; beseeching you to be my good liege lady, and to admit me to the said fealty and homage.”
The lady accepted the homage of Sieur Tranchelot, graciously remitted the lods et ventes,—the fines payable to the seigneur,—gave him the cup of wine to drink when he rose to his feet, and ordered him to be generously entertained by her majordomo, and sent back to the Bocage rejoicing.
So the days passed by in alternation of business and pastime, but all made a pleasure for the agreeable inmates of the Manor House. Philibert gave himself up to the delirium of enchantment which the presence of Amélie threw over him. He never tired of watching the fresh developments of her gloriously-endowed nature. Her beauty, rare as it was, grew day by day upon his wonder and admiration, as he saw how fully it corresponded to the innate grace and nobility of her mind.