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"Welcome once more, my friends, who long have been friendless and homeless,

Welcome once more to a home, that is better perchance than the old one!

Here no hungry winter congeals our blood like the rivers;

Here no stony ground provokes the wrath of the farmer;

Smoothly the ploughshare runs through the soil, as a keel through the water.

All the year round the orange groves are in blossom; and grass grows

More in a single night than a whole Canadian summer.

Here, too, numberless herds run wild and unclaimed in the

prairies;

Here, too, lands may be had for the asking, and forests of timber With a few blows of the axe are hewn and framed into houses. After your houses are built, and your fields are yellow with harvests,

No King George of England shall drive you away from your homesteads,

Burning your dwellings and barns, and stealing your farms and your cattle."

Speaking these words, he blew a wrathful cloud from his nostrils, While his huge, brown hand came thundering down on the table, So that the guests all started; and Father Felician, astounded, Suddenly paused, with a pinch of snuff half-way to his nostrils. But the brave Basil resumed, and his words were milder and gayer:

"Only beware of the fever, my friends, beware of the fever! For it is not like that of our cold Acadian climate,

Cured by wearing a spider hung round one's neck in a nutshell!" Then there were voices heard at the door, and footsteps

approaching

Sounded upon the stairs and the floor of the breezy veranda.
It was the neighboring Creoles and small Acadian planters,
Who had been summoned all to the house of Basil the herdsman.
Merry the meeting was of ancient comrades and neighbors:
Friend clasped friend in his arms; and they who before were as
strangers,

Meeting in exile, became straightway as friends to each other,
Drawn by the gentle bond of a common country together.
But in the neighboring hall a strain of music, proceeding
From the accordant strings of Michael's melodious fiddle,
Broke up all further speech. Away, like children delighted,

All things forgotten beside, they gave themselves to the maddening

Whirl of the dizzy dance, as it swept and swayed to the music, Dreamlike, with beaming eyes and the rush of fluttering garments.

Meanwhile, apart at the head of the hall, the priest and the herdsman

Sat, conversing together of past and present and future;
While Evangeline stood like one entranced, for within her
Olden memories rose, and loud in the midst of the music
Heard she the sound of the sea, and an irrepressible sadness
Came o'er her heart, and unseen she stole forth into the garden.
Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of the forest,
Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On the river
Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous gleam of
the moonlight,

Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and devious spirit.
Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers of the garden
Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers and con-
fessions

Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent Carthusian.

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Through those shadowy aisles had Gabriel wandered before her, And every stroke of the oar now brought him nearer and nearer.

Then in his place, at the prow of the boat, rose one of the oarsmen,

And, as a signal sound, if others like them peradventure

Sailed on those gloomy and midnight streams, blew a blast on his bugle.

Wild through the dark colonnades and corridors leafy the blast rang,

Breaking the seal of silence and giving tongues to the forest. Soundless above them the banners of moss just stirred to the music.

Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance,

Over the watery floor, and beneath the reverberant branches; But not a voice replied; no answer came from the darkness; And when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain was the silence.

Then Evangeline slept; but the boatmen rowed through the midnight,

Silent at times, then singing familiar Canadian boat-songs,
Such as they sang of old on their own Acadian rivers,

While through the night were heard the mysterious sounds of the desert,

Far off,-indistinct,-as of wave or wind in the forest,

Mixed with the whoop of the crane and the roar of the grim alligator.

Thus ere another noon they emerged from the shades; and before them

Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atchafalaya.
Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undulations
Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, the lotus
Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boatmen.
Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magnolia blossoms,
And with the heat of noon; and numberless sylvan islands,
Fragrant and thickly embowered with blossoming hedges of roses,
Near to whose shores they glided along, invited to slumber.
Soon by the fairest of these their weary oars were suspended.
Under the boughs of Wachita willows, that grew by the margin,
Safely their boat was moored; and scattered about on the green-
sward,

Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers slumbered.

Over them vast and high extended the cope of a cedar.

Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet-flower and the grapevine

Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the ladder of Jacob,
On whose pendulous stairs the angels ascending, descending,
Were the swift humming-birds, that flitted from blossom to
blossom.

Such was the vision Evangeline saw as she slumbered beneath it. Filled was her heart with love, and the dawn of an opening heaven

Lighted her soul in sleep with the glory of regions celestial.

Nearer, ever nearer, among the numberless islands, Darted a light, swift boat, that sped away o'er the water, Urged on its course by the sinewy arms of hunters and trappers. Northward its prow was turned, to the land of the bison and beaver.

At the helm sat a youth, with countenance thoughtful and care

worn.

Dark and neglected locks overshadowed his brow, and a sadness
Somewhat beyond his years on his face was legibly written.
Gabriel was it, who, weary with waiting, unhappy and restless,
Sought in the Western wilds oblivion of self and of sorrow,
Swiftly they glided along, close under the lee of the island,
But by the opposite bank, and behind a screen of palmettos;
So that they saw not the boat, where it lay concealed in the
willows;

All undisturbed by the dash of their oars, and unseen, were the sleepers;

Angel of God was there none to awaken the slumbering maiden. Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of a cloud on the prairie. After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died in the dis

tance,

As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, and the maiden
Said with a sigh to the friendly priest, "O Father Felician!
Something says in my heart that near me Gabriel wanders.
Is it a foolish dream, an idle and vague superstition?
Or has an angel passed, and revealed the truth to my spirit?"
Then, with a blush, she added, "Alas for my credulous fancy!
Unto ears like thine such words as these have no meaning."
But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled as he
answered,-

"Daughter, thy words are not idle; nor are they to me without meaning,

Feeling is deep and still; and the word that floats on the surface
Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor is hidden.
Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions. ·
Gabriel truly is near thee; for not far away to the southward,
On the banks of the Têche, are the towns of St. Maur and St.
Martin.

There the long-wandering bride shall be given again to her bridegroom,

There the long-absent pastor regain his flock and his sheepfold. Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of fruit trees; Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of heavens Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of the forest. They who dwell there have named it the Eden of Louisiana."

With these words of cheer they arose and continued their journey.

Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon
Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the landscape;
Twinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest
Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.
Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of silver,
Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the motionless water.
Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible sweetness.
Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of feeling
Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters around
her.

Then from a neighboring thicket, the mocking-bird, wildest of singers,

Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water,
Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music,
That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to
listen.

Plaintive at first were the tones and sad; then soaring to madness
Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bacchantes.
Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation;
Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision,
As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the treetops
Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on the branches.
With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed with emo-
tion,

Slowly they entered the Têche, where it flows through the green
Opelousas,

And, through the amber air, above the crest of the woodland,

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