Part 2 (2/2)
This evening she had been thinking over these things after choir-practice. Lately she had found time pa.s.s very slowly. Her father and brother had come home early in the evening, but went off directly after supper to skin the seals, and she would see no more of them that night. In all probability in a few days they would go on another expedition.
A quick footstep crunching the sand and a voice saying, ”Good evening, Marie,” made the girl turn round to see Noel McAllister standing beside her.
She sprang to her feet and exclaimed, with a certain glad ring in her voice:
”Oh! Noel, is that you? I am so pleased you are back.”
”Yes, Marie, it is I, not my ghost, though you look as if you had seen one. And are you pleased to see me?”
”Of course I am. I think you need scarcely ask that question.”
”And what have you been doing, my dear one, since I have been away?”
”Oh! Noel, the time has seemed so long, so wearisome. There has been no one here to speak to, except for a week or two when Eugene Lacroix came home for his holidays. I used to watch him paint, and he talked to me about his work at Laval.”
”Marie, I don't like Eugene Lacroix. He is stupid, conceited, impractical.”
”Indeed, I think you are mistaken. M. Bois-le-Duc calls him a genius.
Eugene, too, is a most interesting companion, and he has told me many tales of countries far beyond here.”
”Well, he may be a genius, though I for my part cannot see it. And you, my dear one, do you long to see those countries beyond the sea? I know I do. I am tired of this life, this continual struggle for a bare existence. The same thing day after day, year after year; nothing new happens. Why did M. Bois-le-Duc teach me of an outer world beyond the bleak Gulf of St. Lawrence? Why did he teach me to read Virgil and Plato?
He did it for the best, no doubt; but I think he did wrong. He has stirred up within me a restless evil spirit of discontent. Oh! Marie, to think I am doomed to be a fisherman here all my life. It is hard.”
”Yes, Noel, it is hard. It has always seemed to me that you with your talents, your learning, are thrown away here. But why not go to Quebec or Montreal? You would have a wider sphere there.”
”I would go to-morrow, Marie, if it were not for one thing.”
”What is that, Noel?”
”Marie, do you not know?”
”I suppose your reason is that you do not wish to leave your mother,”
said the girl hesitatingly.
”No, Marie, that is not the reason. My mother would let me go to-morrow, if I wished.”
”Then I cannot understand why you stay. You would do much better in Quebec, you with your ability.”
”You cannot understand, Marie? You do not know that it is because of _you_, and you alone, that I stay on in this place, smothering all my ambitions, my hopes of advancement. No, Marie, you say you do not understand. If you spoke more truly you would say you did not care where I went.”
”Noel,” said the girl gently, and looking distressed, ”you know, my dear one, that I do care very much, and I cannot think why you speak to me in that bitter way.”
”Marie, do you care? You have seemed lately so indifferent to my plans, and it has made me angry, for, my darling, you must have seen that my love for you is deep, strong, mighty, like the flow of yonder great river. Aye, it is stronger, greater, more unchangeable.”
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