About Mavis Gallant: Mavis Leslie de Trafford Gallant was a Canadian writer who spent much of her life and career in France. Best known as a short story writer, she also published novels, plays and essays.
She and Marie were Montreal girls, not trained to accompany heroes, or to hold out for dreams, but just to be patient.
She was a pretty girl, with a pointed face and blue-black hair. But she was an untidy, a dusty sort of girl, and you felt that in a few years something might go wrong; she might get swollen ankles or grow a mustache.
Spring had been the season for dying in the old days. Invalids who had struggled through the dark comfort of winter took fright as the night receded.
