CHAPTER XI.
THE INTERPRETER OF GOD ONE evening in February Samuel Chapdelaine said to his daughter: "The roads are passable; if you wish it, Maria, we shall go to La Pipe on Sunday for the mass." "Very well, father;" but she replied in a voice so dejected, almost indifferent, that her parents exchanged glances behind her back.
Country folk do not die for love, nor spend the rest of their days nursing a wound.

They are too near to nature, and know too well the stern laws that rule their lives.

Thus it is perhaps, that they are sparing of high-sounding words; choosing to say "liking" rather than "loving" ...

"ennui" rather than "grief," that so the joys and sorrows of the heart may bear a fit proportion to those more anxious concerns of life which have to do with their daily toil, the yield of their lands, provision for the future.
Maria did not for a moment dream that life for her was over, or that the world must henceforward be a sad wilderness, because Francis Paradis would not return in the spring nor ever again.

But her heart was aching, and while sorrow possessed it the future held no promise for her.
When Sunday arrived, father and daughter early began to make ready for the two hours' journey which would bring them to St.Henri de Taillon, and the church.