My prediction was verified in the morning. The snow had ceased falling, but lay piled up against the lower half of my window. On the level there appeared to be about three feet, while the drifts showed from six to twenty feet I had never seen anything like it, and was for sometime lost in admiration. Across the road the children of the epider and the good man himself were already busy trying to shovel some of it away from the door. It seemed at first sight a hopeless task and I, looking down at Delle Josephine's door, wondered how on earth we were ever to get out of it when not a particle of it was to be seen. Not all that day did I get out of the house, and but for the absorbing interest I suddenly found centred in Delle Josephine I would have chafed terribly at being so shut up. Trains, were blockaded of course, it was the great fall of '81, and interrupted travel for half of a week. All that day I waited so to speak for the evening. Snow-boys there were many; customers none. The little Frenchwoman brought me some dinner at one o'clock, pork, tinned tomatoes, and a cup of coffee. About five o'clock I strolled down into the shop, it was lighted very meagrely with three oil lamps. Delle Josephine was seated on a high chair behind the one counter at work on some ribbon—white ribbon. She was quilling it, and looked up with some astonishment as I walked up to her.

“Do you object to a visitor Miss Josephine?” said I with the most amiable manner I could muster. Poor soul! I should have thought she would have welcomed one.

“Mais non Monsieur but I speak so little English.”

“And I so little French. But we can manage to understand each other a little, I think. What do you say to the weather? When shall I be able to go out?”

Delle Josephine laughed. She went on quilling the ribbon that looked so white against her yellow hands.

“O Monsieur could go out dis day if he like, but de snow ver bad, very thick.”

“Do you ever go out, Miss Josephine?”

“Non Monsieur. I have not been out for what you call a valk—it will be five years that I have not been.”

“But you go to church, I suppose?”

“Mais oui Monsieur, but that is so near. And the good PÈre Le Jeune—he come to see me. He is all the frien Delle Josephine has, ah! oui Monsieur.”

“Ah! Bonneroi isn't much of a place, is it? Have you ever been to Quebec or Montreal?”

“Ah! Quebec—oui, I live there once, many years ago. I was taken when I was ver young by Madame de la Corne de la ColombiÈre pour une bonne; vous comprenez?”

“Oh! bonne, yes, we use that word too. It means a nursemaid, eh! Were there children in the family?”

Delle Josephine dropped her ribbon and threw up her hands.

“Mon Dieu! les enfants! Mais oui, Monsieur, they were nine children! There was Maamselle Louise and Maamselle Angelique with the tempaire of the diable himself oui Monsieur, and FranÇois and RÉnÉ and l'petite Catherine, and the rest I forget Monsieur. And dey live in a fine chÂteau, with horse and carridge and everything as it would be if they were in their own France. Monsieur has been in France?”

Only in Paris, I told her; a spasmodic run across the Channel—Paris in eight hours. Two days there then return—

“That does not give one much idea of France.”

“Nou, non, Monsieur. But there is no countree like France dey say dat familee—and that is true, eh, Monsieur?”

“I am afraid I cannot agree with you, Delle Josephine,” said I. “To me there is no country like England, but that may be because I am an Englishman. Tell me how long did you live in Quebec with this family?”

“I was there ten year Monsieur. Then one day, I had a great accidence—oh! a ver sad ting, ver sad!” The Frenchwoman laid down the ribbon and went on. “A ver sad ting happen to me and the bÉbÉ Catherine. We were out l'ptite and me, for a valk, and we come to a part of the town ver slant, ver hilly. L'ptite Catherine was in her carridge and I let go, and she go all down, Monsieur, and I too over the hill—the cleef, you call it—but the bÉbÉ was killed and I Monsieur, I was alive, but like this!” showing her shoulder. “And what did they do?”

“At the chÂteau? Ah, figure-toi, monsieur, the agony of dat pauvre dame! I was sent away, she would not see me, and I left QuÊbec at once. I was no more bonne, monsieur; Delle Josephine was enough dat. I could make de hats and de bonnets for de ladees, so I come away out to Bonneroi, and I haf made de hats and de bonnets for the ladees of Bonneroi for twenty year.”

“Is it possible?” I said, much touched by the little story. “And the ladies of Bonneroi, are they hard to please?”

Delle Josephine, who had spoken with the customary vim and gesture of the French while—telling her tale, resumed her quilling and said, with a shrug of one shoulder,

“They do not know much, and dat is true.” I laughed at the ironical tone.

“And you—you provide the modes?”

“I haf been to QuÊbec” she said quietly.

“Twenty years ago,” I thought, but had too much respect for the queer little soul to say it aloud.

“I see amongst other things,” I went on, “a most—remarkable—a very pretty, I should say—hat in your window. The red one, you know, with the bird of paradise.”

Delle Josephine looked up quickly. “Dat is not for sale, monsieur.”

“No? Why, I had some idea of perhaps purchasing it for a friend of mine. Did you make that hat yourself?”

She nodded with a sort of conscious pride. Yet it was not for sale! I wondered why. The strange scene of the foregoing evening came into my mind, and I began to understand this singular—case of monomania. It must be that having lived so many years in almost solitary confinement, one might say, her mind had slightly given away, and she found her only excitement and relaxation in posing before the glass in that extraordinary manner. I hardly knew whether it would be an act of kindness to remove the hat; she talked quite rationally and cheerfully, and remembering the innate vanity of the French as a nation, I concluded to let the matter rest That night I heard no talking in the sitting-room. I slept profoundly, and woke up later than usual We were not dug out yet, though two snow-boys with their shovels were doing their best to unearth us. I waited some time for Delle Josephine to appear with the tray; but she too was late, evidently, for at ten o'clock she had not come. I dressed and went down stairs. As I passed the sitting-room I saw her tricked out as before in the hat and the antimacassar seated on the ottoman in front of the looking-glass. Heavens, she looked more frightful than ever! I made up my mind to speak to her at, once, and see if I could not stop such hideous mummery. But when I advanced I perceived that indeed I had come too late. The figure on the ottoman was rigid in death. How it ever held itself up at all I could never think, for I gave a loud cry, and rushing from the room knocked against the open door and fell down senseless.

Outside, I suppose, the snow-boys shovelled away as hard as ever. When I came to myself I did not need to look around; I knew in a flash where I was, and remembered what had happened. I ran to the shop door and hammered with all my might.

“Let me out!” I cried. “Open the door! open the door! for Heaven's sake!” Then I ran upstairs, and did the same at my window. It seemed years upon years of time till they were enabled to open the door and let me out. I rushed out bareheaded, forgetful of the intense cold, thinking first of all of the priest PÈre Le Jeune, so strong is habit, so potent are traditions. I knew where he lived, up the first turning in a small red brick house next the church of St. Jean Baptiste. I told him the facts of the case as well as I could and he came back at once with me. There was nothing to be done. Visitation of God or whatever the cause of death Delle Josephine Boulanger was dead. The priest lifted his hands in horror when he saw the ghostly hat. I asked him what he knew about her, but he seemed ignorant of everything concerning the poor thing, except the aves she repeated and the number of times she came to confession. But when we came to look over her personal effects in the drawers and boxes of the shop, there could be no doubt but that she had been thoroughly though harmlessly insane. We found I should think about one hundred and fifty boxes: from tiny little ones of pasteboard to large square ones of deal, full of rows and rows of white quilled ribbon, similar to the piece I had seen her working at on that last night of her life on earth. Some of the ribbon was yellow with age, others fresher looking, but in each box was a folded bit of paper with these words written inside,

“What money there was, PÈre Le Jeune must have appropriated for I saw nothing of any. After the dismal funeral, to which I went, I gathered my effects together and went to the hotel. The first day I could proceed, I returned to Montreal and have not visited Bonneroi since. The family of de la Corne de La ColombiÈre still reside somewhere near Quebec, I believe. The chÂteau is called by the charming name of Port Joli, and perhaps some day I may feel called upon to tell them of the strange fate which befell their poor Josephine. Whether the melancholy accident which partly bereft her of her reason was the result of carelessness I cannot say but I shall be able, I think, to prove to them that she never forgot the circumstance, and was to the day of her death occupied in making ready for the little coffin and shroud of her 'p'tite Catherine.' My sketch of the frost bound Montmorenci was never finished, and indeed my winter sketching fell through altogether after that unhappy visit to Bonneroy. I was for weeks haunted by that terrible sight, half ludicrous, half awful, and I have, now that I am married, a strong dislike to scarlet in the gowns or head-gear of my wife and daughter.”