It was the cultivation of the primitive and idealistic mind, which could not rationalise a sense of romance, of the altruistic, by knowledge of life.

As she sat behind the post-office counter she read all sorts of books that came her way.
When she learned English so as to read it almost as easily as she read French, her greatest joy was to pore over Shakespeare, with a heart full of wonder, and, very often, eyes full of tears--so near to the eyes of her race.

Her imagination inhabited Chaudiere with a different folk, living in homes very unlike these wide, sweeping-roofed structures, with double windows and clean-scrubbed steps, tall doors, and wide, uncovered stoops.

Her people--people of bright dreaming--were not quarrelsome, or childish, or merely traditional, like the habitants.

They were picturesque and able and simple, doing good things in disguise, succouring distress, yielding their lives without thought for a cause, or a woman, and loving with an undying love.
Charley was of these people--from the first instant she saw him.