On their side, the women were not less engaged, baking the bread and preparing the meals, combing the wool, spinning and weaving and making the simple garments. Thirteen years later, when Marguerite Bourgeoys formed her first community of two helpers, Marie Barbier, daughter of Gilbert, the first Canadian girl to be received into the Congregation of Notre-Dame of Montreal, could be seen in her religious habit going to and from the pasturage grounds of the common, leading the cattle and often bearing on her shoulders the flour which she had previously taken as wheat to be ground at the mill. In similar attire could have been seen Sister Crolo, tending the farm. And when not thus occupied, Marguerite Bourgeoys and her companions were busy sewing and cutting, to clothe the women and natives. But in 1654 Marguerite Bourgeoys, the future schoolmistress, had not gathered her community together, and she was not overburdened in this office, for there was only one French girl, Jeanne Loisel, who, born in Montreal on July 21, 1649, was now about 4-1/2 years of age. This girl, who remained with Marguerite Bourgeoys till she was married, was the first child to live to any age. For hitherto all that had been born had died in their tender years. One child, the adopted daughter of Parmenda, who had been born a year before coming to Montreal, had, however, prospered, and she was shortly to be married, as we shall see. The contracts of marriage, preserved in the city archives of this period, gave an insight in the life of the time. The contract of marriage of Louis Prud'homme with Roberte Gadois reveals that her father gave his daughter, besides the sum of 500 _livres_, a complete bed, fifty ells of silk, a cow and its calf, six dishes, six plates and a pewter pot--luxuries in these primitive times.[73] In a contract of the year 1650, we find that the bridegroom, of well-to-do means, as a gift to his bride, gave, in his marriage settlement, the sum of fifty to sixty _livres_ and his residence in his principal house; and on her part she would bring her dowry of 500 _livres_.