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CHAPTER HI FRANCOIS PASSES BY One morning three days later.... CHAPTER III FRANCOIS PASSES BY NE morning three days later, on opening the door, Maria's ear caught a sound that made her stand motionless and listening. The distant and continuous thunder was the voice of wild waters, silenced all winter by the frost. "The ice is going out," she announced to those within. "You can hear the falls." This set them all talking once again of the opening season, and of the work soon to be commenced. The month of May came in with alternate, warm rains and fine sunny days which gradually conquered the accumulated ice and snow of the long winter. Low stumps and roots were beginning to appear, although the shade of close-set cypress and fir prolonged the death-struggle of the perishingsnow- drifts; the roads became quagmires; wherever the brown mosses were uncovered they were full of water as a sponge. In other lands it was already spring; vigorously the sap wasrunning, buds were bursting and presently leaves would unfold; but the soil of far northern Canada must be rid of one chill and heavy mantle before clothing itself afresh in green. A dozen times in the course of the day Maria and her mother opened the window to feel the softness of the air, listen to the tinkle of water running from the last drifts on higher slopes, or hearken to the mighty roar telling that the exulting Peribonka was free, and hurrying to the lake a freight of ice-floes from the remote north. Chapdelaine seated himself that evening on the door-step for his smoke; a stirring of memory brought the remark: "Francois will soon be passing. He said that perhaps he would come to see us." Maria replied with a scarce audible"Yes," and blessed the shadow hiding her face. Ten days later he came, long afte...