FRANCOIS PASSES BY One morning three days later, on opening the door, Maria's ear caught a sound that made her stand motionless and listening.

The distant and continuous thunder was the voice of wild waters, silenced all winter by the frost.
"The ice is going out," she announced to those within.

"You can hear the falls." This set them all talking once again of the opening season, and of the work soon to be commenced.

The month of May came in with alternate warm rains and fine sunny days which gradually conquered the accumulated ice and snow of the long winter.

Low stumps and roots were beginning to appear, although the shade of close-set cypress and fir prolonged the death-struggle of the perishing snowdrifts; the roads became quagmires; wherever the brown mosses were uncovered they were full of water as a sponge.