HER OWN PEOPLE

Canadian-French and Canadian-English and the time-worn inner conflicts of the two background are brought sharply home to 17-year old Rosalie, as she left the Snowballs, who brought her up on the River and taught her English ways, and returned to her own French family at the Cape. Rosalie, full of her own little personal pride and importance, feels herself superior to relatives and old friends, though she is not above deliberately attracting quiet, dependable Laurent, while at the same time, striving to attach English Hazen. But it is the new schoolmaster at the River, Talmadge, who proves a real test of her charms, who woos her and wins her, but is inarticulate about marriage. It is through Laurent's hatred of Talmadge that tragedy comes -- and Rosalie reaches awareness of where her true affections and rightful heritage lie...Contrast of cultures, of economics, of characteristics, in the French-Canadian fisherfolk and the farming English, a contrast of heritages and history that make for friendship balanced out of enmity, and provide the background for Rosalie's quiet little story.