But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of the owners;

There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.

Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the Basin of Minas,

Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand-Pré,

Dwelt on his goodly acres ; and with him, directing his household,

Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of the village.

Stalworth and stately in form was the man of seventy winters;

Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow-flakes ;

White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks

as brown as the oak-leaves.

Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen

summers.

Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the way-side,

Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses !

Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows.

When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide

Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah! fair in sooth was the maiden.

Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell from its turret

Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his hyssop

Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them,

Down the long street she passed, with her chap

let of beads and her missal,

Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-rings,

Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an heirloom,

Handed down from mother to child, through long

generations.

But a celestial brightness

beauty

a more ethereal

Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after confession,

Homeward serenely she walked with God's bene

diction upon her.

When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.

Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of the farmer

Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea;

and a shady

Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreathing around it.

Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath; and a footpath

Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the meadow.

Under the sycamore-tree were hives overhung by a penthouse,

Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the road-side,

Built o'er a box for the poor, or the blessed image of Mary.

Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well with its moss-grown

Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for the horses.

Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were the barns and the farm-yard.

There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the

antique ploughs and the harrows;

There were the folds for the sheep; and there,

in his feathered seraglio,

Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with the selfsame

Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent Peter.

Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a village. In each one

Far o'er the gable projected a roof of thatch; and a staircase,

Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous corn-loft.

There too the dove-cot stood, with its meek and innocent inmates

Murmuring ever of love; while above in the

variant breezes

Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of mutation.

Thus, at peace with God and the world, the

farmer of Grand-Pré