Down o'er the hill-side bounding, they glided away o'er the meadow.

Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests on the rafters,

Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone1 which the swallow

Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight of its fledglings:

Lucky was he who found that stone in the nest of the swallow!

Thus passed a few swift years, and they no longer were children.

He was a valiant2 youth, and his face, like the face of the morning,

Gladdened the earth with its light, and ripened thought into action.

She was a woman now, with the heart and hopes of a

woman.

"Sunshine of Saint Eulalie

the sunshine

3 יי

was she called; for that was

Which, as the farmers believed, would load their orchards

with apples;

She, too, would bring to her husband's house delight and

abundance,

Filling it full of love, and the ruddy faces of children.

1 that wondrous stone, etc. It 2 valiant (from Latin valere, to was one of the Norman-French su- be strong), literally vigorous of perstitions, that, if one of a swal-body, and hence courageous, heroic. low's young is blind, the mother seeks on the shore of the ocean a certain little stone, with which she restores its sight. He who found such a stone in a swallow's nest was accounted fortunate indeed, as it was a remedy for many ills.

8 Saint Eulalie. St. Eulalie's day is the 12th of February. An old Norman proverb runs thus: "If the sun smiles on Saint Eulalie's day, there will be plenty of apples, and cider enough." This explains the allusion that follows.

II.

In-doors, warm by the wide-mouthed fireplace, idly the farmer

Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames and the smoke-wreaths

Struggled together like foes in a burning city. Behind him,

Nodding and mocking along the wall, with gestures fan

tastic,

Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into darkness.

Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm-chair Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on the dresser

Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the

sunshine.

2

Fragments of song the old man sang, and carols of

Christmas,

Such as at home, in the olden time, his fathers before him Sang in their Norman orchards and bright Burgundian3 vineyards.

Close at her father's side was the gentle Evangeline seated, Spinning flax for the loom, that stood in the corner behind

her.

Silent a while were its treadles, at rest was its diligent shuttle,

While the monotonous drone of the wheel, like the drone of a bagpipe,

1 like foes, What is the figure | formed from Burgundy, a province of southern France.

of speech?

4 treadles (allied to tread), the parts of a loom moved by the

2 carols (Latin chorus), literally a dance song, and hence a song of joy. 8 Burgundian, an adjective feet.

Followed the old man's song, and united the fragments together.

As in a church, when the chant of the choir at intervals

ceases,

Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or words of the priest at the altar,

So, in each pause of the song, with measured motion the clock clicked.1

Thus as they sat, there were footsteps heard, and, suddenly lifted,

Sounded the wooden latch, and the door swung back on its hinges.

Benedict knew by the hobnailed2 shoes it was Basil the blacksmith,

And by her beating heart Evangeline knew who was with him.

"Welcome!" the farmer exclaimed, as their footsteps paused on the threshold,

"Welcome, Basil, my friend! Come take thy place on the settle1

Close by the chimney-side, which is always empty without

thee; 5

Take from the shelf overhead thy pipe and the box of tobacco;

1 measured... the alliterations.

clicked. Note | in the second person singular ("thee," "thy "thou," etc.), is

2 hobnailed, the soles strength-explained by the fact that the use ened with strong-headed nails. of this form is among the French

8 her beating heart. A fine touch of nature.

settle, a high-backed bench.

To

an indication of endearment. tutoyer (to thee-thou) a person, one must be an intimate friend. (It is

5 thee. The use of the pronoun | also used towards inferiors.)

Never so much thyself art thou as when through the

curling

Smoke of the pipe or the forge thy friendly and jovial1 face gleams

Round and red as the harvest moon through the mist of the marshes."

Then, with a smile of content,2 thus answered Basil the blacksmith,

Taking with easy air the accustomed seat by the fire

"Benedict Bellefontaine, thou hast ever thy jest and thy

ballad!

Ever in cheerfulest mood art thou, when others are filled

with

Gloomy forebodings of ill, and see only ruin before

them.

Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up a horseshoe."4

Pausing a moment, to take the pipe that Evangeline brought him,

And with a coal from the embers had lighted, he slowly continued:

5

"René Leblanc will be here anon, with his papers and

Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in the joy of our children?"

As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in her lover's,

1 jovial. See Webster for the in- | Why is the comparison felicitous teresting etymology of this word.

2 content=contentment.

8 air. Give a synonym.

here?

5 René Leblanc, the notary.
6 inkhorn. Inkstands were in

4 as if... horseshoe. Explain. | early times made of horn.

Blushing Evangeline heard the words that her father had spoken,

And, as they died on his lips, the worthy notary entered.

Bent, like a laboring oar that toils in the surf of the

ocean,

Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the notary

Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize,

hung

Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows

Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal.2 Father of twenty children was he, and more than a hundred Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his great watch tick.

Four long years in the times of the war had he languished a captive,

Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of the

English.

8

Now, though warier grown, without all guile or suspicion, Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike.

He was beloved by all, and most of all by the children; For he told them tales of the Loup-garou in the forest, And of the goblin that came in the night to water the horses,

1 Bent notary - public. Transpose into the prose order. What is the simile?

2 supernal, lofty, supreme.

3 warier, from wary, which is connected with the old adjective ware, cautious. (Compare aware.)

4 Loup-garou, a man who, according to a superstition of the Middle Ages, walked the night in the guise of a wolf, that he might devour children. It corresponds to the Old-English were-wolf (wer, man).