'CHEZ BRISSON. REGINA-FLEURETTE POMMINVILLE, with her sleeves rolled well up above her red elbows, and a considerable expanse of stout leg in coarse, grey stocking exposed to the casual gaze, was busy washing down the front steps of the house of her mistress, Dame Elmire Bouchard, veuve du feu Aristide Bouchard, Comptable,' in the nipping air of late October at six o'clock in the morning. Regina splashed and rubbed with great vigour and thoroughness and no waste of time or energy, partly because the exceedingly raw air penetrated her none-too-thick clothing, and she wished to get her work done before the water in her pail turned to ice, partly because the raw and nipping gaze of the widow was to inspect the results of her application, and most of all because to do whatever she undertook with vigour and thoroughness and complete absorption was native to her. She had not been long enough off the farm down on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence to learn shiftless town ways of doing things, and when she scrubbed she made things clean. The steps of Mme. Bouchard had, since the arrival of Regina, been made as spotless as their shabbiness and dingy paint allowed, every morning-not merely overlaid by a trail of dirty, soapsuddy water, as had been the invariable method of her predecessors. Regina was twenty, and had been for two years in the service of Mme. Bouchard. La veuve du feu Aristide, spending the summer with her daughter and grandchildren in the cheap and unfashionable village of Ste. Clorinthe de Haute-Rive, a few months after her bereavement, had engaged the strong and willing Regina as general servant, and though nothing could have been rawer than she was then, the widow had at once realised her promise and solid worth, and had offered to take her to town, feed and clothe her, and pay her $5 a month. To the eldest of sixteen children the opportunity seemed brilliant and alluring in the extreme, but Regina found town life very lonely, and cried herself to sleep many a night because she was so homesick for the brothers and sisters and the farm and the neighbours. As a matter of fact, Mme. Bouchard fully appreciated the priceless gift of intelligence and thoroughness possessed by her general servant, and allowed her no chance to meet other domestics and learn town ways. She kept her closely at work all week, and permitted her to go to Mass at five o'clock in the morning on Sunday, and but rarely took her out with her in the afternoons, or perhaps to market. Regina did all the work of the house, including washing, minded the grandchildren when they came to visit, and knitted incessantly for her mistress, and of course saved up her money for her trousseau and her dot. As she was not engaged to any of the young farmers near her home, and as she knew no one in town and went out so seldom, and never to a veillée, there did not seem to be any immediate prospect of matrimony for her; but this never occurred to her mind, and after all, her attitude was justified as events proved, for Fate, at the moment she was giving the steps a final rinse on this October morning, was coming down the street. Fate in this instance was disguised as a muscular young workman in blue overalls, with his pick and shovel over his shoulder. He looked with interest at Regina's capable finishing touches, and admiringly at her robust figure and round red cheeks as she stood up and stretched her cramped back a moment before seizing up her pail and vanishing into the house. Next morning he passed again at the same time, and caught an interesting glimpse of pail and stout calf. Regina noticed him on this occasion. Every day he looked for her, and presently they exchanged formal greetings. 'Good morning, mademoiselle,' said the man. 'Good morning, monsieur,' said the maid. 6 Will you tell me your name?' 'Regina,' she replied demurely: And yours, m’sieu ? 'Joseph,' he said. The very next day it became evident that step-washing had ended for the season, as the snow came; but every time Joseph passed the house he looked for Regina. He thought all winter what he should say to her the next time they met, and the first April morning that she was out he took up the conversation quite simply where it had left off the November before. Regina is a pretty name,' said Joseph. 'But Joseph is the most beautiful name,' responded Regina, smiling. St. Joseph, the stepfather of our Blessed Lord, is my favourite saint. He was a working-man-like us--and he supported the Holy Family so humbly, and without thanks too!' This view of St. Joseph seemed extremely vivid and new to Joseph Brisson, accustomed to think of him as a holy and venerable greybeard, perpetually leaning on a staff, and gazing pensively at the Infant Jesus; and he looked at Regina half alarmed at her brilliance and daring. 'Do you make much at your work?' inquired Regina. Joseph replied that he was paid three dollars a week, and she opened her eyes at such wealth. Poets and other writers of all ages have agreed-in varying terms-that love will find out a way, and the courtship of ReginaFleurette Pomminville and Joseph Brisson proceeded rapidly. She very soon possessed his history as well as his heart, and had made up her mind as to her future-seeing a great deal farther and more clearly than he. Joseph, like herself, was from a farm on the lower St. Lawrence, but from the South Shore, where the people have a little less capacity and independence than those on the North, because of the communication by railway which they have long enjoyed, but which has not yet destroyed the character of the other side. He was twenty-six years old, and he loved town life, but was very lonely. One day Joseph produced from his pocket a beautiful brass locket on a red velvet ribbon, and displayed it to Regina. Never had she seen so splendid a jewel. 'Do you want it?' said Joseph, invitingly. "Ah!' breathed the enraptured Regina. But if you take it you must take me too,' said Joseph boldly. 'Yes,' said Regina simply; 'I wish to marry.' When later on in the day she presented herself to the severe eye of her mistress, and made the same announcement quite as simply, the old lady received such a shock that it took the form of violent passion. She called Regina all sorts of names which the girl luckily did not understand, and flatly refused to let her leave. Regina, intimidated at first, retired, but stuck to her purpose. Then one day she again presented herself before the widow, and said that she had consulted her confessor and he had told her to give Madame two months' notice. I wish to marry on the tenth of June,' she announced. Her mistress could say no more, so she interviewed Joseph, and satisfied herself that he was sober and respectable; gave Regina an almost complete tea-set which she had bought a bargain, and went to the wedding. Regina wore a white cotton dress with a bright rose-nanane' sash, a white straw hat trimmed with rose-nanane ribbon and bunches of vivid cornflowers, white canvas shoes with black stockings, and carried in her cotton-gloved hands a bunch of artificial flowers with her prayer-book and beads. Joseph wore a dress-suit, which he had rented for the day, and was entirely in black except for a peony in his buttonhole. They hired a buggy, and drove all afternoon through the dusty city streets, sitting happily hand in hand, and eating bananas. II. The Brissons set up housekeeping in two furnished rooms which cost $6 a month. On their wedding night they had a combined capital of $25.25. Twenty-five dollars remained to Regina out of her savings, after buying herself a few little household necessities and her trousseau. Twenty-five cents remained to Joseph, after paying his wedding and honeymoon expenses, including dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and this sum he turned over to Regina. He had, however, paid the rent for three months, and was now making five dollars a week. All the bride's worldly goods, including the tea-set, went into a brand-new straw suit-case and a paper parcel, and all Joseph's possessions consisted of his workman's overalls and one complete change and his pick and shovel. As soon as he was paid his money on Saturday night, he took it home to his wife. As he said, half humorously, he only saw the colour of his money twice-when he was paid, and when he made it over to Regina. She allowed him five cents a week for tobacco. Regina immediately applied her gifts of cleanliness and thrift to her new position in life, cleaning her two rooms till the hardiest germ could not have survived, and scrubbing even the ceilings in true North Shore fashion. She kept Joseph and herself absolutely neat and well fed, knitting all their stockings, and wasting not so much as the thread of a bean. But she could not clean every day and all day long, and she began to long for some outlet for her activities. One day an idea occurred to her, and when Joseph came home that night she got him to nail up a board like a shelf across their one window that gave on the street. C Next day she took a dollar and went out to make some purchases, and when she came back she arranged them with pride on the shelf, which she had first covered neatly with white paper. There were half a dozen packets of needles, some slate-pencils, a dozen sugarsticks displayed in a jam-jar, some bootlaces, a tumbler full of all-day suckers,' a few little coloured religious pictures, and six spools of thread. Her first customer was a neighbour who came in, consumed by curiosity, to find out what in the name of God she was doing, that Mme. Brisson! but was charmed by Regina's ready information and keen eye into spending three cents on a VOL. XXXIV.-NO. 201, N.S. 26 spool of black cotton before she left. Regina's innate capacity to do whatever she undertook thoroughly came into play again. The contents of her shelf varied week by week till she had gauged exactly the small necessities of her neighbours. Sometimes she made a profit of fifteen or twenty cents on her dollar, sometimes only five cents, but she never lost, and gradually she added to her stock, and kept tea and brown sugar and eggs, and a few loaves of bread. She never gave credit for a cent, and she was perfectly just, but never exceeded the exact due of the purchaser by a hair'sbreadth--not even the children got an extra peppermint. She was well liked, and her strong vitality and vigour commanded admiration and respect. She was always well, and always ready to give sound advice as well as practical help to her neighbours in times of domestic affliction and excitement. In the course of time she became the mother of two sons, who from their infancy looked as if they were regularly scrubbed with pumice-stone, and who were never anything but neat, and who cut their teeth, learned to walk and run messages, and made their first Communion in the most exemplary manner. Their mother longed ardently for a daughter to train, but she never had any more children. The shop grew. First they took another room, then presently they actually owned the whole house in which they had begun their married life, and Mme. Brisson, Marchande,' appeared in gold letters on a sanded black sign at the door. Regina had never known a prouder moment in her life, and was not to know as proud a one again for many years to come, as that in which she first saw her name upon that sign, and realised what it stood for. It was to her as a first published book is to an author. She now had a fixed ambition which she kept unswervingly in view: nothing less than to found and manage a departmental store of her own--a large, conspicuous, handsome store which would be known and envied and pointed out as the finest of its kind in the neighbourhood-a success, and hers alone. With this purpose always before her, she educated her two sons, Alexandre and Achille, giving them a good commercial school training first, and then sending them to be clerks in a big city store, about the management of which she questioned them untiringly when they came home at night, making shrewd comments and criticisms. With Joseph she had not done very much. He was still a daylabourer-honest, hard-working, profoundly stupid-but 'bon comme du pain,' in the expressive habitant metaphor. He looked |