noon
Jean Jacques , having spent a year at Laval University at Quebec , had almost a gift of thought , or thinking ; and he never ceased to ply the visiting philosopher and musician with questions which he proceeded to answer himself before they could do so ; his quaint , sentimental , meretricious observations on life saddening while they amused his guests . They saddened the musician more than the other because he knew life , while the philosopher only thought it and saw it . But even the musician would probably have smiled in hope that day when the young `` Spanische '' came driving up the river-road from the steamboat-landing miles away . She arrived just when the clock struck noon in the big living-room of the Manor . As she reached the open doorway and the wide windows of the house which gaped with shady coolness , she heard the bell summoning the workers in the mills and on the farm -- yes , M. Barbille was a farmer , too -- for the welcome home to `` M'sieu ' Jean Jacques , '' as he was called by everyone . That the wedding had taken place far down in Gaspe and not in St. Saviour 's was a reproach and almost a scandal ; and certainly it was unpatriotic . It was bad enough to marry the Spanische , but to marry outside one 's own parish , and so deprive that parish and its young people of the week 's gaiety , which a wedding and the consequent procession and tour through the parish brings , was little less than treason .