Marie Gourdon | Page 7

the distant light-house.
The light-house of Father Point stands out clear and distinct on a long neck of rocky land running into the St. Lawrence.
All is still. But hark! A song comes faintly, carried on the evening breeze, and presently it grows clearer, louder, more distinct.
The words now can be heard plainly. They are those of that old French Canadian song so familiar to all dwellers in the Province of Quebec:
"A la claire fontaine, M'en allant promener, J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle Que je me suis baigné. Il y a longtemps que je t'aime Jamais je ne t'oublierai."
The voice was tuneful, strong, and full and clear, though lacking in cultivation. It was that of a girl, who was sitting under the shadow of a large boulder on the beach. She seemed about eighteen, though, in the uncertain wavering light of the sunset, it was impossible to distinguish her features clearly.
Her gown was of simple pink cotton, and on her head she wore a large peaked straw hat, which gave her a quaint old-world appearance.
Her brown hair had escaped from beneath this large head-gear, and blew about in pretty, untidy curls round her neck and shoulders. In her hand was a roll of music, which she had just brought from the church, where she had been practising for the morrow's mass.
The girl was Marie Gourdon, only daughter of old Jean Baptiste Gourdon, fisherman of Father Point. As far as the educational advantages of Father Point and Rimouski could take her Marie had gone, but that was not saying much. Her father was fairly well-to-do for that part of the world, and had sent her, at an early age, to the convent of Rimouski. There she was brought up under the careful training of Mother Annette, the superioress, and received enough musical instruction to enable her to act as organist at the Father Point church, and to direct the choir at Grand Mass.
Marie Gourdon was rather a lonely girl, although she had more outside interests than many of her age. She had few companions, for most of the young girls of the district obtained situations in Quebec, or some of the large towns, finding the dullness of Father Point insupportable. Her father and brother had this summer been on long fishing expeditions, one taking them even so far as the Island of Anticosti, so that Marie was left much to her own devices. No?l McAllister, it is true, was often here, but neither his mother nor M. Bois-le-Duc seemed to like to see him in Marie Gourdon's society.
This evening she had been thinking over these things after choir-practice. Lately she had found time pass very slowly. Her father and brother had come home early in the evening, but went off directly after supper to skin the seals, and she would see no more of them that night. In all probability in a few days they would go on another expedition.
A quick footstep crunching the sand and a voice saying, "Good evening, Marie," made the girl turn round to see No?l McAllister standing beside her.
She sprang to her feet and exclaimed, with a certain glad ring in her voice:
"Oh! No?l, is that you? I am so pleased you are back."
"Yes, Marie, it is I, not my ghost, though you look as if you had seen one. And are you pleased to see me?"
"Of course I am. I think you need scarcely ask that question."
"And what have you been doing, my dear one, since I have been away?"
"Oh! No?l, the time has seemed so long, so wearisome. There has been no one here to speak to, except for a week or two when Eugène Lacroix came home for his holidays. I used to watch him paint, and he talked to me about his work at Laval."
"Marie, I don't like Eugène Lacroix. He is stupid, conceited, impractical."
"Indeed, I think you are mistaken. M. Bois-le-Duc calls him a genius. Eugène, too, is a most interesting companion, and he has told me many tales of countries far beyond here."
"Well, he may be a genius, though I for my part cannot see it. And you, my dear one, do you long to see those countries beyond the sea? I know I do. I am tired of this life, this continual struggle for a bare existence. The same thing day after day, year after year; nothing new happens. Why did M. Bois-le-Duc teach me of an outer world beyond the bleak Gulf of St. Lawrence? Why did he teach me to read Virgil and Plato? He did it for the best, no doubt; but I think he did wrong. He has stirred up within me a restless evil spirit of discontent. Oh! Marie, to think I am doomed to be a fisherman here all my life. It is hard."
"Yes, No?l,