The autumns also
changed not at all. They cast their pensive canopies over the home-scene
which Jean Jacques loved so well, before he was exhaled from its bosom.
One autumn when the hillsides were in those colours which none but a
rainbow of the moon ever had, so delicately sad, so tenderly assuring, a
traveller came back to St. Saviour's after a long journey. He came by
boat to the landing at the Manor Cartier, rather than by train to the
railway-station, from which there was a drive of several miles to Vilray.
At the landing he was met by a woman, as much a miniature of the days of
Orleanist France as himself. She wore lace mits which covered the hands
but not the fingers, and her gown showed the outline of a meek crinoline.
"Ah, Fille--ah, dear Fille!" said the little fragment of an antique day,
as the Clerk of the Court--rather, he that had been for so many years
Clerk of the Court--stepped from the boat. "I can scarce believe that you
are here once more. Have you good news?"
"It was to come back with good news that I went," her brother answered
smiling, his face lighted by an inner exaltation.
"Dear, dear Fille!" She always called him that now, and not by his
Christian name, as though he was a peer. She had done so ever since the
Government had made him a magistrate, and Laval University had honoured
him with the degree of doctor of laws.
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