Evangeline is a girl of Acadie, a place in Canada. She is engaged to Gabriel. They are separated when the British deport the Acadians from Acadie in the Great Upheaval. She searches for him across America. This takes many years. Sometimes she is close to him without knowing he is near. Finally she settles in Philadelphia. She grows old. She works as a Sister of Mercy among the poor. She tends the dying during an epidemic. She finds Gabriel among the sick. He dies in her arms.