se
himself for having written it. "Yes," he said, "life was then a thing
to be put into pretty periods; now it's something that has risks and
averages, and may be insured."

There was regret, fancied or expressed, in his tone, that made her
sigh, "Ah! if I'd only had a little more money, you might have devoted
yourself to literature;" for she was a true Bostonian in her honor of
our poor craft.

"O, you're not greatly to blame," answered her husband, "and I forgive
you the little wrong you've done me. I was quits with the Muse, at any
rate, you know, before we were married; and I'm very well satisfied to
be going back to my applications and policies to-morrow."

To-morrow? The word struck cold upon her. Then their wedding journey
would begin to end tomorrow! So it would, she owned with another sigh;
and yet it seemed impossible.

"There, ma'am," said the driver, rising from his seat and facing round,
while he pointed with his whip towards Quebec, "that's what we call the
Silver City."

They looked back with him at the city, whose thousands of tinned roofs,
rising one above the other from the water's edge to the citadel, were
all a splendor of argent light in the afternoon sun. It was indeed as if
some magic had clothed that huge rock, base and steepy flank and crest,
with a silver city. They gazed upon the marvel with cries of joy that
satisfied the driver's utmost pride in it, and Isabel said, "To live
there, there in that Silver City, in perpetual sojourn! To be always
going to go on a morrow that never came! To be forever within one day of
the end of a wedding journey that never ended!"

From far down the river by which they rode came the sound of a cannon,
breaking the Sabbath repose of the air. "That's the gun of the Liverpool
steamer, just coming in," said the driver.

"O," cried Isabel, "I'm thankful we're only to stay one night more,
for now we shall be turned out of our nice room by those people who
telegraphed for it!"

There is a continuous village along the St. Lawrence from Quebec, almost
to Montmorenci; and they met crowds of villagers coming from the church
as they passed through Beauport. But Basil was dismayed at the change
that had befallen them. They had their Sunday's best on, and the women,
instead of wearing the peasant costume in which he had first seen them,
were now dressed as if out of "Harper's Bazar" of the year before. He
anxiously asked the driver if the broad straw hats and the b