evident, to their inmost hearts; provincial in origin, provincial by
inheritance, by all their circumstances, social and political. Their
relation with France was not a proud one, but it was not like submersion
by the slip-slop of English colonial loyalty; yet they seem to be
troubled by no memories of their hundred years' dominion of the land that
they rescued from, the wilderness, and that was wrested from them by war.
It is a strange fate for any people thus to have been cut off from the
parent-country, and abandoned to whatever destiny their conquerors chose
to reserve for them; and if each of the race wore the sadness and
strangeness of that fate in his countenance it would not be wonderful.
Perhaps it is wonderful that none of them shows anything of the kind. In
their desertion they have multiplied and prospered; they may have a
national grief, but they hide it well; and probably they have none.

Later, one of them appeared to Isabel in the person of the pale, slender
young ecclesiastic who had shown her and Basil the pictures in the
country church. She was confessing to the priest, and she was not at all
surprised to find that he was Basil in a suit of medieval armor. He had
an immense cross on his shoulder.

"To get this cross to the top of the mountain," thought Isabel, "we must
have two horses. Basil," she added, aloud, "we must have two horses!"

"Ten, if you like, my dear," answered his voice, cheerfully, "though I
think we'd better ride up in the omnibus."

She opened her eyes, and saw him smiling.

"We're in sight of Quebec," he said. "Come out as soon as you can,--come
out into the seventeenth century."

IX. QUEBEC.

Isabel hurried out upon the forward promenade, where all the other
passengers seemed to be assembled, and beheld a vast bulk of gray and
purple rock, swelling two hundred feet up from the mists of the river,
and taking the early morning light warm upon its face and crown.
Black-hulked, red-illumined Liverpool steamers, gay river-craft and ships
of every sail and flag, filled the stream athwart which the ferries sped
their swift traffic-laden shuttles; a lower town hung to the foot of the
rock, and crept, populous and picturesque, up its sides; from the massive
citadel on its crest flew the red banner of Saint George, and along its
brow swept the gray wall of the famous, heroic, beautiful city,
overtopped by many a gleaming spire and antique roof.

Slowly out of our work-day, bus