The lady remained standing at the head of her table until they all
sat down, when, clasping her hands, she recited with feeling and
clearness the old Latin grace, "Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua
dona," sanctifying her table by the invocation of the blessing of
God upon it and upon all who sat round it.
A soup, rich and savory, was the prelude at all dinners in New
France. A salmon speared in the shallows of the Chaudiere, and a
dish of blood-speckled trout from the mountain streams of St.
Joachim, smoked upon the board. Little oval loaves of wheaten bread
were piled up in baskets of silver filigree. For in those days the
fields of New France produced crops of the finest wheat--a gift
which Providence has since withheld. "The wheat went away with the
Bourbon lilies, and never grew afterwards," said the old habitans.
The meat in the larder had all really been given to the hungry
censitaires in the kitchen, except a capon from the basse cour of
Tilly and a standing pie, the contents of which came from the
manorial dovecote.
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