So said a master-musician and his friend, a philosopher from Nantes, who came to St.Saviour's in the summer just before the marriage, and lodged with Jean Jacques.

Jean Jacques, having spent a year at Laval University at Quebec, had almost a gift of thought, or thinking; and he never ceased to ply the visiting philosopher and musician with questions which he proceeded to answer himself before they could do so; his quaint, sentimental, meretricious observations on life saddening while they amused his guests.

They saddened the musician more than the other because he knew life, while the philosopher only thought it and saw it.
But even the musician would probably have smiled in hope that day when the young "Spanische" came driving up the river-road from the steamboat-landing miles away.

She arrived just when the clock struck noon in the big living-room of the Manor.

As she reached the open doorway and the wide windows of the house which gaped with shady coolness, she heard the bell summoning the workers in the mills and on the farm--yes, M.Barbille was a farmer, too--for the welcome home to "M'sieu' Jean Jacques," as he was called by everyone.
That the wedding had taken place far down in Gaspe and not in St.
Saviour's was a reproach and almost a scandal; and certainly it was unpatriotic.