the inseparable twins,
Gladys and Victoria, one of whom always laughed when the other was
amused; and the three preternaturally important brothers, representing
the triple-x output of Harvard, Yale and Columbia; and Aunt Euphemia
van Benschoten, who had inherited the van Benschoten nose, a block on
Fifth Avenue, and a pew in St. Mark's church (two of which possessions
she was entitled to devise by will); and Miss Nancy Bangs, Ethel's most
intimate friend; and the Reverend Oriel Bellingham Jenks, her favourite
clergyman of the period; and--oh, yes! of course--there was Bolton
Chichester.

It was quite a large party. They went first to Niagara, which Pop
Wilson said was "premature, if not improper." Then they went down
through the Thousand Islands, where Ethel pointed out the inhuman and
cruel expression of the many fishermen, to which Chichester answered,
"I don't know that it's cruel to catch pickerel, but it's certainly
childish."

Then they descended the ridiculous rapids of Lachine, which splashed
and murmured around them like a very mild surf at Shelter Island. They
spent a couple of days in looking for the antiquities of Montreal,
trying to find the romantic atmosphere of New France under the _ancien
regime_. Then they went to Quebec, and found it.

Dear, delightful old Quebec, with her gray walls and shining tin roofs;
her precipitous, headlong streets and sleepy squares and esplanades;
her narrow alleys and peaceful convents; her harmless antique cannon
on the parapets and her sweet-toned bells in the spires; her towering
chateau on the heights and her long, low, queer-smelling warehouses
in the lower town; her spick-and-span _caleches_ and her dingy
trolley-cars; her sprinkling of soldiers and sailors with Scotch accent
and Irish brogue and Cockney twang, on a background of _petite bourgeoisie_
speaking the quaintest of French dialects; her memories of an
adventurous, glittering past and her placid contentment with the
tranquil grayness of the present; her glorious daylight outlook over
the vale of the St. Charles, the level shore of Montmorenci, the green
Isle d'Orleans dividing the shining reaches of the broad St. Lawrence,
and the blue Laurentian Mountains rolling far to the eastward--and at
night, the dark bulk of the Citadel outlined against the starry blue,
the trampling of many feet up and down the wooden pavement of the
terrace, the chattering and the laughter, the music of the military
band, and far