sight a hopeless task and I, looking down at Delle Josephine's door,
wondered how on earth we were ever to get out of it when not a
particle of it was to be seen. Not all that day did I get out of the
house, and but for the absorbing interest I suddenly found centred
in Delle Josephine I would have chafed terribly at being so shut up.
Trains, were blockaded of course, it was the great fall of '81, and
interrupted travel for half of a week. All that day I waited so to
speak for the evening. Snow-boys there were many; customers none.
The little Frenchwoman brought me some dinner at one o'clock, pork,
tinned tomatoes, and a cup of coffee. About five o'clock I strolled
down into the shop, it was lighted very meagrely with three oil lamps.
Delle Josephine was seated on a high chair behind the one counter
at work on some ribbon--white ribbon. She was quilling it, and
looked up with some astonishment as I walked up to her.
"Do you object to a visitor Miss Josephine?" said I with the most
amiable manner I could muster. Poor soul! I should have thought she
would have welcomed one.
"_Mais non Monsieur_ but I speak so little English."
"And I so little French. But we can manage to understand each other
a little, I think. What do you say to the weather? When shall I be
able to go out?"
Delle Josephine laughed. She went on quilling the ribbon that looked
so white against her yellow hands.
"O _Monsieur_ could go out dis day if he like, but de snow ver bad,
very thick."
"Do you ever go out, Miss Josephine?"
"_Non Monsieur_. I have not been out for what you call a valk--it
will be five years that I have not been."
"But you go to church, I suppose?"
"_Mais oui Monsieur_, but that is so near. And the good _Pere Le
Jeune_--he come to see me. He is all the frien Delle Josephine has, ah!
_oui Monsieur_."
"Ah! Bonneroi isn't much of a place, is it? Have you ever been to
Quebec or Montreal?"
"Ah! _Quebec--oui_, I live there once, many years ago. I was taken
when I was ver young by _Madame de la Corne de la Colombiere pour
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