She would go to-night secretly and nail the cross again on the church door, and so stop the chatter of evil tongues.

The moon set very early now, and as every one in Chaudiere was supposed to be in bed by ten o'clock, the chances of not being seen were in her favour.

She received the final impetus to her resolution by a quarrelsome and threatening remark of Jo Portugais to some sharp-tongued gossip in the post-office.

She was glad that Jo should defend M'sieu', but she was jealous of his friendship for the tailor.

Besides, did there not appear to be a secret between Jo and M'sieu'?
Was it not possible that Jo knew where M'sieu' came from, and all about him?
Of late Jo had come in and gone out of the shop oftener than in the past, had even brought her bunches of mosses for her flower-pots, the first budding lilacs, and some maple-sugar made from the trees on Vadrome Mountain.
She remembered that when she was a girl at school, years ago--ten years ago--Jo Portugais, then scarcely out of his teens, a cheerful, pleasant, quick-tempered lad, had brought her bunches of the mountain-ash berry; that once he had mended the broken runner of her sled; and yet another time had sent her a birch-bark valentine at the convent, where it was confiscated by the Mother Superior.