"Our _habitants_, scattered wide apart over all New France, and consequently deprived of markets during spring, summer, and autumn, live then on nothing but salt meat, bread, and milk, and, except in the infrequent case of a wedding, they rarely give a feast at either of those seasons. In winter, on the other hand, there is a lavish abundance of fresh meats of all kinds; there is a universal feasting, and hospitality is carried to an extreme from Christmas time to Lent; there is a perpetual interchange of visits. Four or five _carrioles_, containing a dozen people, drive up; the horses are unhitched, the visitors take off their wraps, the table is set, and in an hour or so it is loaded down with smoking dishes." "Your _habitants_ must possess Aladdin's lamp!" exclaimed Archie. "You must understand," said Jules, "that if the _habitants'_ wives had to make such preparations as are necessary in higher circles, their hospitality would be much restricted or even put a stop to, for few of them are able to keep a servant. As it is, however, their social diversions are little more trouble to them than to their husbands. Their method is very simple. From time to time, in their leisure moments, they cook three or four batches of various kinds of meat, which in our climate keeps without difficulty; when visitors come, all they have to do is to warm up these dishes in their ovens, which at this season of the year are kept hot enough to roast an ox. The _habitants_ abhor cold meat. It is good to see our Canadian women, so gay at all times, making ready these hasty banquets--to see them tripping about, lilting a bit of a song, or mixing in the general chatter, and dancing backward and forward between the table and the stove. Josephte sits down among her guests, but jumps up to wait upon them twenty times during the meal. She keeps up her singing and her chaffing, and makes everybody as merry as herself. "You will, doubtless, imagine that these warmed-up dishes lose a good deal of their flavor; but habit is second nature, and our _habitants_ do not find fault. Moreover, as their taste is more wholesome and natural than ours, I imagine that these dinners, washed down with a few glasses of brandy, leave them little cause to envy us. But we shall return to this subject later on; let us now rejoin my father and mother, who are probably getting impatient at our absence. I merely wanted to initiate you a little beforehand in the customs of our _habitants_, whom you have never before observed in their winter life." Everybody sat up late that night at D'Haberville Manor. There was so much to talk about. It was not till the small hours that the good-nights were said; and soon the watchers of the May-pole were the only ones left awake in the manor house of St. Jean-Port-Joli. CHAPTER VII. THE MAY-FEAST. Le premier jour de Mai, Labourez, J'm'en fus planter un mai, Labourez, A la porte à ma mie. _Ancienne Chanson._