tchful and grave.

"We have made a mistake," he said to the Abbe in a low voice. "I
did speak to the Governor once; but he was against the measure, and
we permitted it to drop. But I can see now it was a mistake. We
should have planted a battery--a strong one--upon Cape Tourmente,
and bombarded the ships as they passed by. We trusted to the
dangerous navigation of the Traverse, but we made a mistake:
English sailors can go anywhere!"

The Abbe made a sign of assent. He remembered now how the General
had made this suggestion to the Governor, and pressed it with some
ardour, but had been met with opposition at every point. Vaudreuil
had declared that it would weaken the town to bring out such a
force to a distant point; that they must concentrate all their
strength around the city; that they would give the enemy the chance
of cutting their army in two. Montcalm had yielded the point. There
was so much friction between him and the Governor that he had to
give way where he could. Vaudreuil was always full of grand,
swelling words, and boasts of his great deeds and devotion; but men
were beginning to note that when face to face with real peril he
lost his nerve and self confidence, and had to depend upon others.
It was thus that he opposed Montcalm (of whose superior genius and
popularity he was bitterly jealous) at every turn when danger was
still distant, but turned to him in a fluster of dismay when the
hour of immediate peril had come, and had been made more perilous
by his own lack of perception and forethought whilst things were
less imminent.

"Yet look at our lines of defence!" he exclaimed, after he had
finished all the survey he could make of the distant sails crowded
about the Isle of Orleans. "Where could any army hope to land along
this northern shore? Let them fire as they like from their ships;
that will not hurt us. And we can answer back in a fashion that
must soon silence them. The heights are ours; the town is safely
guarded. The summer is half spent already. Let us but keep them at
bay for two months, and the storms of the equinox will do the rest.
When September comes, then come the gales--and indeed they may help
us at any time in these treacherous waters. You mariners of
England, you are full of confidence and skill--I am the last to
deny it--but the elements have proved stronger than you before
this, and may do so again."

Corinne listened to all this with a beating heart, and asked of her
aunt