Merely nodding a farewell
to Fanchon, the Indians silently pushed their canoe into the stream,
and, embarking, returned to the city by the way they came.
A fine breezy upland lay before Fanchon Dodier. Cultivated fields
of corn, and meadows ran down to the shore. A row of white
cottages, forming a loosely connected street, clustered into
something like a village at the point where the parish church stood,
at the intersection of two or three roads, one of which, a narrow
green track, but little worn by the carts of the habitans, led to
the stone house of La Corriveau, the chimney of which was just
visible as you lost sight of the village spire.
In a deep hollow, out of sight of the village church, almost out of
hearing of its little bell, stood the house of La Corriveau, a
square, heavy structure of stone, inconvenient and gloomy, with
narrow windows and an uninviting door. The pine forest touched it
on one side, a brawling stream twisted itself like a live snake
half round it on the other. A plot of green grass, ill kept and
deformed, with noxious weeds, dock, fennel, thistle, and foul
stramonium, was surrounded by a rough wall of loose stones, forming
the lawn, such as it was, where, under a tree, seated in an
armchair, was a solitary woman, whom Fanchon recognized as her aunt,
Marie Josephte Dodier, surnamed La Corriveau.
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