"
Such was the style of the royal grants of seignioral rights conceded
in New France, by virtue of one of which this gallant Norman
gentleman founded his settlement and built this Manor House on the
shores of the St. Lawrence.
A broad, smooth carriage road led up to the mansion across a park
dotted with clumps of evergreens and deciduous trees. Here and
there an ancient patriarch of the forest stood alone,--some old oak
or elm, whose goodly proportions and amplitude of shade had found
favor in the eyes of the seigniors of Tilly, and saved it from the
axe of the woodman.
A pretty brook, not too wide to be crossed over by a rustic bridge,
meandered through the domain, peeping occasionally out of the
openings in the woods as it stole away like a bashful girl from the
eyes of her admirer.
This brook was the outflow of a romantic little lake that lay hidden
away among the wooded hills that bounded the horizon, an irregular
sheet of water a league in circumference, dotted with islands and
abounding with fish and waterfowl that haunted its quiet pools.
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