Louis Hémon

“ The forest ... Always the inscrutable, inimical forest, with a host of dark things hiding there--closed round them with a savage grip that must be loosened little by little, year by year; a few acres won each spring and autumn as the years pass, throughout all the long days of a dull harsh life ... No, that she could not face ...
"I know well enough that we shall have to work hard at first," Eutrope went on, "but you have courage, Maria, and are well used to labour, as I am. I have always worked hard ”

“ As week followed week something quickened in her heart and shot upward, like a rich and beauteous sheaf whose opening ears bend low under their weight. Happiness beyond any dream came dancing to her ... ”

“ And this was her problem: when a girl is grown to womanhood, when she is good-looking, healthy and strong, clever in all that pertains to the household and the farm, young men come and ask her to marry, and she must say "Yes" to this one and "No" to another.
If only Francois Paradis had not vanished forever in the great lonely woods, all were then so plain. No need to ask herself what she ought to do ”

“ I said nothing before as my farm was not so forward that we could live there comfortably, and moreover I guessed that you liked Francois Paradis better than me. But as Francois is no longer here, and this young fellow from the States is courting you, I said to myself that I, too, might try my fortune ..."
The snow was coming now in serried flakes, fluttering whitely for an instant against the darkly-encircling forest, on the way to join that other snow with which five months of winter had burdened the earth.
"It is true enough that I am not rich ”