ing from a far-off settlement, the wedding reception was held at the house of the groom's parents on the edge of the town. Evening breezes from the broad St. Lawrence Gulf fluttered the starred flag of Acadia above the little platform erected near the shore. A single violinist provided dancing tunes for the "square" figures which, performed ceremoniously enough at the beginning of the bal, became the excuse for embraces, mischievous or sentimental, as evening wore to night, and night to dawn. Honoured guests were seated in the parlour of the four-roomed cottage, with chromos of the Popes looking down from: the wall. The wedding-table was laid in the kitchen where a fiery stove kept coffee and attendants hot while in kettles set over a bed of coals in the outer yard the feast was cooking.
Eight days before the wedding the parents of the pale young groom, according to Acadian custom, had driven from door to door to give the oral invitation which had to-night been so generously accepted. Now they beam among their guests, speaking their voluble dialect, passing cups of coffee. The doctor arrives, dusty from a twenty-mile drive; the priest is received, and duly shown the wedding tokens of china and coloured glass presented to the nouveaux mariés. Finally the curé, the doctor and the young Jerseyman who manages "the store" retire to an upper room to play "forty-five"; the young people swarm in
