absorbing that I could not have endured other friends. April passed,
and May, and with the hot weather Etienne, whose health gave way all
at once, would have to return for a short visit to the old mother
all by herself on the island of Grand Calumet.
I feared to let him go, he looked more delicate in my eyes every day,
but I knew it would be good for him in many ways. So a day came that
saw my friend D'Alencourt go back to his northern home. He would not
ask me to go and visit him, he had too much natural pride for that,
but I made up my mind to find him out, for all that. As may be
supposed I was like the traditional fish out of the traditional water
for some time after his departure.
I read and amused myself in any way that offered, but cared not to
experiment on any more French-Canadians.
In my reading I read for two, and made notes of anything I thought
would interest Etienne. One day I came across the same name as
his own, borne by a certain young soldier, a sprig of the French
_noblesse_ who had followed in the train of Bigot, the dissolute
and rapacious Governor of New France. I meditated long over this. The
name was identical--Guy Chezy D'Alencourt. In the case of my friend
the mill-hand there was simply the addition of Etienne, the first
Christian name. Could he possibly be the descendant of this daring
and gallant officer, of whose marriage and subsequent settling in
Canada I could find no mention? The thing seemed unlikely, yet
perfectly possible. I had predicted it myself. As if to fasten my
thoughts even more securely on the absent Etienne that very day
arrived a letter from Grand Calumet. It was addressed to me in a
laboured but most distinct hand. I thought that Etienne had
commissioned the priest doubtless to write for him or some other
friend, but when I opened it I found to my great surprise that it was
from Etienne himself and in his own handwriting, the result he told
me of work at home in his Lower Town boarding-house.
I dropped the letter. He had taught himself to, write! This was the
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