and foolish enough to try and make him admire my beauty. Oh, Marguerite, I hate myself when I think of my folly and wickedness."

Marguerite tenderly kissed and soothed her, bathed her hot forehead and hands, made her go to bed, and sat beside her with one arm thrown round her, as if she had been a troubled child her fond nurse was hushing to rest, till at last, worn out by her tears and agitation, Claire fell asleep.

But Marguerite had yet much to do before she could be alone with her grief. Her father had been surprised and annoyed at Maurice having taken himself off so suddenly without even coming to bid him good-night, and Marguerite had to listen to his half jesting, half earnest complaints, that Italy had spoiled Maurice, and he was not half as good a fellow as he used to be, and smile and stifle her bitter pain. When supper-time came, she had to sit down at the table and appear to eat, though the sight of food made her sick; to talk, and laugh, and seem gay and at ease, when her heart had been so cruelly bruised and wounded that no conscious feeling was left but one of hopeless anguish. At last it was her father's hour for going to bed; then Mère Monica locked the outer doors, and went to her room, and Marguerite was alone.

Taking up her candle, she went softly into the chamber where Claire slept, and carefully shading the light, stole to the side of the bed. Claire was sleeping the deep sleep that follows exhaustion. Her rich golden hair, loosened by her restless tossings, streamed over the pillow; long eye-lashes, darker than her hair, fringed her closed lids; her cheeks were flushed, like the heart of a damask rose; a smile seemed hovering round her lips. The coverings had partly fallen off, and Marguerite could see one little white hand pressing a little bunch of purple and white pansies, which Maurice had gathered for her in the garden that afternoon, against her breast. Beautiful she looked as Psyche when she

first wept herself to sleep after Cupid had flown, and the memory of her lost bliss still lingered in her dreams. It seemed to Marguerite she had never known half her sister's loveliness before, and turning away, she met the reflection of her own dark, pale face in a looking glass that stood near, with a smothered sigh. Then she stooped over Claire, softly kissed the smooth, innocent brow, and disappeared as noiselessly as she had come. Going into the studio, she locked the door and put out the light. At last she was alone, no mortal eye to see, no mortal ear to hear. Now she might take out the grief she had kept hidden away in her heart, and look at it in all its terror. She might let herself feel all the weight of the burden that had been laid upon her to bear, and teach herself, if she could, calmly to renounce love, and hope, and happiness on earth.

There was a narrow, latticed window, at one end of the room, with a broad windowseat, and throwing herself on her knees before it, Marguerite opened it and looked out. All was still in the street below, and scarcely a murmur reached her ear from the more noisy and crowded parts of the city. Nothing was to be seen but the quiet sky and a few pale stars. The night was calm and mild as if it had been summer. There seemed peace without, but in Marguerite's heart what a tumult of passionate pain! Deep tenderness for Claire and jealous bitterness against her; a wild yearning love for Maurice, and something that was almost contempt for his fickleness and weakness, contended with each other; and the struggles of wounded pride and slighted love, of anger and pity, of hopeless regret and conscious wrong, were renewed again and again through all that long night. There are dark chambers in the soul, of which only misery holds the keys, and into these poor Marguerite got fearful glimpses now.

At last the night passed. She watched the stars fade out, and the gray morning twi

light brighten into the golden flush of the coming sun. Then she rose from the kneeling attitude in which she had remained all night, and went into a little room which served her for a dressing-room. She roused her stagnant energies with cold water, dressed herself carefully, and brushed and arranged her hair, anxiously trying to banish all traces of her sleepless night, her tears and mental struggles. Then she sat down and wrote a note to Maurice. A very few words sufficed.

come here. Ma foi, the longer I live the more I see that lovers are nothing but a trouble. A good, sensible husband that will provide well for the house, and never scolds or grumbles as long as his meals are well served, and his house comme il faut, is not to be despised; but your fine, fanciful lovers are another matter; there is no chance of making good husbands out of them."

After thus giving indirect expression to the growing dissatisfaction which she, as well as Christian Kneller, had lately felt with Mau

"Your sincere friend,

"MARGUERITE."

She knew that Maurice was always early in his studio, and going down stairs to Mère Monica, whom she had heard stirring in the kitchen, she begged her to take the note at

once.

"Mon Dieu! not this minute," said Mère Monica, beating the eggs, with which she intended to make an omelette for breakfast, more rapidly than ever.

"Yes, ma mère, this minute."

"Mon Dieu! why, he will be sure to be here by and by. Cannot you wait till then." "I am afraid he will not come if he does not get my note," said Marguerite; "that is the reason I want you to take it to him."

Now Mère Monica turned hastily round and looked at Marguerite. "There is something the matter, ma mie," she said, putting down her dish of eggs. "I remember he went away last night before supper. What has he been doing?"

"Oh, ma mère, how can you vex me by such nonsense!" said Marguerite, "why are you so cross to me to-day ?" and she looked up at her faithful old nurse and smiled.

The smile did not seem very satisfactory to Mère Monica, for she shook her head gravely. "Well, well," she said, "I suppose I must take it, ma mie, but it seems very queer, and I never knew you do a queer thing my life till Monsieur Maurice began to

in

her cap, and set off with the note.

For a while Marguerite tried to quiet her impatience by making herself busy in the kitchen. She felt sure that Maurice would come the moment he received her note, but the time she had to wait, short as it was, seemed intolerably long. Now and then she went to a window from whence the street could be seen, to look if he were coming, and when at length his handsome figure came in sight, her heart sprang to meet him as fondly as ever, and for a moment she believed that the passionate words and adoring looks she had heard and seen him give to Claire the day before were only the creations of a dream. But the next instant the cold, stern expression into which his face had hardened when he saw she was in the room, came back with all the force of the cruel reality, and she felt strong again, and able to go through the bitter task she had set herself.

Maurice, too, had passed a sleepless night, and when Marguerite opened the door the sight of his pale, agitated face pierced her heart. But she had fought a fearful battle with herself during the last few hours, the victory had been hardly won, and had left her mind still wrought up to the desperate tension with which we strive for life itself, so that no pain just then could have shaken her self-control. Thanking Maurice for coming so soon, she led the way into the parlour, and Maurice followed.

"I wished you to come now, Maurice,"

THE

PROLOGUE.

HE writer does not propose to propound a new historical theory, or to set forth any new or newly discovered historical facts. He proposes simply to run over with the reader one chapter in the early history of Nova Scotia and of Canada proper, containing the record of the rise and progress of the early missions, and of the lives, labours and deaths of some of the missionaries. The chapter will be new to some. It may be familiar to many; it ought to be interesting to all. For surely it is not too much to claim that the Canadian reader shall have a kindly and deep interest in the men who began the history of our country. It is a history to which we look back as the Greek looked back to the Homeric heroes, or the Roman to the dim figures which fill the epoch of his country's foundation, and which will ever be the prologue to the recital of the most splendid developments to which these colonies may in the future attain.

What, if in our case, the figures are those of Jesuits?

I do not know any one so little as to turn away from the contemplation of the labours of these fathers in North America. They stood alone, in that early time when their labours began, the only champions of our Christianity in the savage regions of the North-west. They opened up the way for all who came after them. If the roads of the north-west all the way to British Columbia have become familiar to the feet of the traveller, it was the Jesuit who laid the first trail across the country. It was Jean de Brebeuf-dead two hundred and fifty odd

years who smoothed a Canadian governor's path to Fort Garry.

When the missions were first established in the Acadian forests, and in the dim regions about the lakes, not a very great deal of interest was taken in the things that were passing in this uncared for corner of the world.

It must be remembered that it was a full century and a half before the true value of the newly discovered continent was understood. As a road to the fabulous magnificence and lavish wealth of the East, as a preserve for furs, or minerals or precious stones, were the new regions alone looked upon for a long time. It was not till life had been lavished and treasure wasted, and energy misapplied to impossible purposes, that it was seen where the wealth of the new lands lay, and that an acre of land properly cultivated was worth more than the average gold mine in the long run. Merchants and politicians had lost hope a little in the new country about the time of the establishment of the missions. It was, however, looked upon as a treasure-house-of souls-by those who felt themselves divinely called to labour among the heathen for their salvation. If the general world took thought of the missionary scheme at all, it looked upon it as the impossible dream of visionary menlooked upon it as the average Spaniard may have looked upon the enterprise of Columbus; looked upon it as the average Roman might have looked upon some scheme of the pagan priests to overturn the Druidical altars, and rear up the temples of the Roman gods in the far-away monster-haunted fastnesses of Britain. What manner of me