Soft creole voices murmured and sang, or jangled their petty domestic discords.

Women in scant petticoats, leggings and moccasins swept snow from the squat verandas, or fed the pigs in little sties behind the cabins.

Everybody cried cheerily: "Bon jour, Monsieur, comment allez-vous ?" as he went by, always accompanying the verbal salute with a graceful wave of the hand.
When he walked early in the morning a waft of broiling game and browning corn scones was abroad.

Pots and kettles occupied the hearths with glowing coals heaped around and under.

Shaggy dogs whined at the doors until the mensal remnants were tossed out to them in the front yard.
But it was always a glimpse of Alice that must count for everything in Beverley's reckonings, albeit he would have strenuously denied it.