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BON MARCHE.
Vilray was having its market day, and everyone was either going to or coming from market, or buying and selling in the little square by the Court House.

It was the time when the fruits were coming in, when vegetables were in full yield, when fish from the Beau Cheval were to be had in plenty--from mud-cats and suckers, pike and perch, to rock-bass, sturgeon and even maskinonge.

Also it was the time of year when butter and eggs, chickens and ducks were so cheap that it was a humiliation not to buy.

There were other things on sale also, not for eating and drinking, but for wear and household use--from pots and pans to rag-carpets and table-linen, from woollen yarn to pictures of the Virgin and little calvaries.
These were side by side with dried apples, bottled fruits, jars of maple syrup, and cordials of so generous and penetrating a nature that the currant and elderberry wine by which they were flanked were tipple for babes beside them.