"The same day, we moved to their farms, which lay near by, and I shall never forget the kind welcome we received from these two families. They vied with each other in their kind offices toward us, and ministered to our wants with so much grace and affability, that it gave additional charm and value to their already boundless hospitality. "Petiots, let the names of Brent and of Smith remain enchased forever like precious jewels in your hearts, let their remembrance never fade from your memory, for more generous and worthier beings never breathed the pure air of heaven. [Illustration: _Catholic Church, St. Martinsville, La._] "Thus it was, petiots, that we settled in Maryland after leaving Acadia. "Three years passed away peacefully and happily, and during the whole of that time, the Smith and Brent families remained our steadfast friends. Our party had prospered, and plenty smiled once more in our homes. We lived as happy as exiles could live away from the fatherland, ignorant of the fate of those who had been torn from us soruthlessly. In vain we had endeavored to ascertain the lot of our friends and relatives, and what had become of them; we could learn nothing. Many parents wept for their lost children; many a disconsolate wife pined away in sorrow and hopeless grief for a lost husband; but, petiots, the saddest of all was the fate of poor Emmeline Labiche." Emmeline Labiche? Who was Emmeline Labiche? We had never heard her name mentioned before, and our curiosity was excited to the highest pitch. Chapter Eight _The_ True Story _of Evangeline_ "Emmeline Labiche, petiots, was an orphan whose parents had died when she was quite a child. I had taken her to my home, and had raised her as my own daughter. How sweet-tempered, how loving she was! She had grown to womanhood with all the attractions of her sex, and, although not a beauty in the sense usually given to that word, she was looked upon as the handsomest girl of St. Gabriel. Her soft, transparent hazel eyes mirrored her pure thoughts; her dark brown hair waved in graceful undulations on her intelligent forehead, and fell in ringlets on her shoulders, her bewitching smile, her slender, symmetrical shape, all contributed to make her a most attractive picture of maiden loveliness. [Illustration: _Evangeline_ By Edwin Douglas] "Emmeline, who had just completed her sixteenth year, was on the eve of marrying a most deserving, laborious and well-to-do young man of St. Gabriel, Louis Arceneaux. Their mutual love dated from their earliest years, and all agreed that Providence willed their union as man and wife, she the fairest young maiden, he the most deserving youth of St. Gabriel. "Their bans had been published in the village church, the nuptial day was fixed, and their long love-dream was about to be realized, when the barbarous scattering of our colony took place.