It was a cold winter evening, long, long ago. The snow was beating against the window-sashes, and the icy north wind howled and shrieked among the naked branches of the great elms in the garden. The whole family had assembled in the _salon_. Our mother, after playing several airs on the piano, allowed her fingers to wander restlessly over the keys—her thoughts were elsewhere. A shade of sadness passed over her brow. “My dear children,” said she, after a moment’s silence, “see what a fearful night this is; perhaps many poor people will perish before morning from cold and hunger. How thankful we ought to be to God for our good food and warm, comfortable beds! Let us say our rosary for the poor travellers who may be exposed to such dangers during the night.” And then she added, “If you say it with devotion, I will tell you all a beautiful story.” Oh! how we wished that our rosary was finished! At that age the imagination is so vivid and the soul so impressionable. Childhood possesses all the charms of the golden dawn of life; enveloping every object in shade and mystery, it clothes each in a poetry unknown to any other age. We gathered around our mother, near the glowing stove, which diffused a delicious warmth throughout the apartment, and listened in a religious sort of silence to her sweet and tender voice. I almost think I hear it now. Listen with me to her story: Toward the middle of the last century, a missionary, accompanied by several Indians, ascended the south bank of the St. Lawrence River, about thirty leagues below Quebec. The missionary was one of those intrepid pioneers of faith and civilization whose sublime figures are thrown out from the dark background of the past, surrounded by a halo of glory and immortality. Nailed on Golgotha during the days of their bloody pilgrimage, they shine to-day on a new Tabor; and the light which radiates from their faces illuminates the present and throws itself far into the future. At their names alone, the people, seized with wonder and respect, bow low their heads; for these names recall a courage most superhuman, a faith most admirable, and a devotedness most sublime. He whom we are following at this moment was one of those illustrious children of the Society of Jesus, whose entire life was consecrated to the conversion of the savages of Canada. He was not very tall, and stooped slightly; his beard, blanched prematurely by hardships, and his pale and attenuated features, seemed to indicate a want of strength and endurance for so hard a life; but this frail body concealed one of those grand souls which draw from the energy of their will an inexhaustible strength. His large, expansive forehead suggested a proportionate intellect, and his features wore an expression of incomparable sweetness and simplicity; the least shade of a melancholy smile played over his lips—in a word, his whole face seemed filled with that mysterious glory with which sanctity illumines her predestined souls.