Eutrope was a fine fellow, hard-working and of kindly disposition, and he loved her; but Lorenzo Surprenant also loved her; he, likewise, was steady and a good worker; he was a Canadian at heart, not less than those amongst whom she lived; he went to church ...

And he offered as his splendid gift a world dazzling to the eye, all the wonders of the city.

He would rescue her from this oppression of frozen earth and gloomy forest.
She could not as yet resolve to say to herself: "I will marry Lorenzo Surprenant," but her heart had made its choice.

The cruel north-west wind that heaped the snow above Francois Paradis at the foot of some desolate cypress bore also to her on its wings the frown and the harshness of the country wherein she dwelt, and filled her with hate of the northern winter, the cold, the whitened ground and the loneliness, of that boundless forest unheedful of the destinies of men where every melancholy tree is fit to stand in a home of the dead.

Love--all-compelling love--for a brief space had dwelt within her heart ...