Change might lay its hand on the parish of St. Saviour's, and it did so
on the beautiful sentient living thing, as on the thing material and man-
made; but there was no change in the sheltering friendship of Mont Violet
or the flow of the illustrious Beau Cheval. The autumns also changed not
at all. They cast their pensive canopies over the home-scene which Jean
Jacques loved so well, before he was exhaled from its bosom.

One autumn when the hillsides were in those colours which none but a
rainbow of the moon ever had, so delicately sad, so tenderly assuring,
a traveller came back to St. Saviour's after a long journey. He came by
boat to the landing at the Manor Cartier, rather than by train to the
railway-station, from which there was a drive of several miles to Vilray.
At the landing he was met by a woman, as much a miniature of the days of
Orleanist France as himself. She wore lace mits which covered the hands
but not the fingers, and her gown showed the outline of a meek crinoline.

"Ah, Fille--ah, dear Fille!" said the little fragment of an antique day,
as the Clerk of the Court--rather, he that had been for so many years
Clerk of the Court--stepped from the boat. "I can scarce believe that
you are here once more. Have you good news?"

"It was to come back with good news that I went," her brother answered
smiling, his face lighted by an inner exaltation.

"Dear, dear Fille!" She always called him that now, and not by his
Christian name, as though he was a peer. She had done so ever since the
Government had made him a magistrate, and Laval University had honoured
him with the degree of doctor of laws.