"Well, things happen that way," he said, as he turned back to look at
Shilah before it disappeared from view.
"Ah, the poor, handsome vaurien!" the woman at the tavern kept saying to
her husband all that day; and she could not rest till she had written to
Virginie how Jean Jacques came to Shilah in the evening, and went with
the dawn.
CHAPTER XXIV
JEAN JACQUES ENCAMPED
The Young Doctor of Askatoon had a good heart, and he was exercising it
honourably one winter's day near three years after Jean Jacques had left
St. Saviour's.
"There are many French Canadians working on the railway now, and a good
many habitant farmers live hereabouts, and they have plenty of
children--why not stay here and teach school? You are a Catholic, of
course, monsieur?"
This is what the Young Doctor said to one who had been under his anxious
care for a few, vivid days. The little brown-bearded man with the
grey-brown hair nodded in reply, but his gaze was on the billowing waste
of snow, which stretched as far as eye could see to the pine-hills in the
far distance. He nodded assent, but it was plain to be seen that the
Young Doctor's suggestion was not in tune with his thought. His nod only
acknowledged the reasonableness of the proposal. In his eyes, however,
was the wanderlust which had possessed him for three long years, in which
he had been searching for what to him was more than Eldorado, for it was
hope and home.
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