To the east of the town, where Viger Square now stands, stretched a swampy marsh where the bulrushes raised their tall heads and the stately purple iris bloomed in profusion; there the long-drawn plaintive cry of the water-fowl echoed through the stillness in melancholy cadences. Back of the settlement, parallel with Notre Dame street, a stream with mimic rush and roar urged its way to the river. Between this and the street, removed from the noise and bustle, lay the quiet cemetery. Some distance away, to the left, nestling at the foot of the mountain, was situated the Mission village established by St. Sulpice for the Christianized Indians. It was dominated by two round stone towers, which afforded considerable protection to the colony; a few French soldiers were always stationed here. Near at hand, in winter half buried in peaked drifts and massive banks of snow, was the shrine of Notre Dame des Nièges. Opposite the city, on the south bank of the St. Lawrence, extending from Longueuil to Laprairie, lay the fief acquired by that brave colonist Charles Le Moyne, the brother-in-law of Jacques Le Ber. His son, the Baron de Longueuil, notwithstanding the conditions of painful change and fluctuation that attended the fortunes of the colony, reigned like a feudal noble at Longueuil. His stone fort, flanked by four strong towers, resembled a fortified French chateau. A church and various substantial stone buildings clustered around it. On St. Helen’s lovely isle, rising with gently wooded slopes out of the water, the troops often camped. Opposite La Salle’s Seigniory at La Chine, on the south bank, was Sault St. Louis (Caughnawaga), an Indian mission station. Ville Marie was open to attack on all sides. The town had been recently fortified with palisades. The few defences it possessed were in very indifferent condition. The country around, and for nearly a hundred miles below it, was easily accessible to the Iroquois by the routes of Lake Champlain and the Upper St. Lawrence. In the unsettled and variable condition of the colony, the clerical influence maintained a certain solidity of aim to the community which they had originated, and in which they certainly were the ruling influence. A Christian outpost established in the wilderness, ravaged by foes, feeble from the exhaustion of a starved and persecuted infancy, Ville Marie still contrived to exist. * * * * * Amid all the conflicting elements of her new surroundings, Lydia Longloy contrived dexterously to steer her way. In her old home she had been taught to regard the French as “bloodthirsty heathen,” but with easy adaptability and admirable tact she now showed herself quite as ready to adopt the faith and opinions of these new friends as she was to follow their fashions and manners. A beguiling innocence was her chief characteristic, accompanied as it was by a soft amiability and teachableness both touching and flattering.