"Little Rose," he said, "thou art a part of old Quebec, but thy son
begins with the new regime. Heaven bless and prosper thee and thy
husband. I should have missed thee sorely had any untoward event
happened."

The settlement at the foot of the cliff had been burned, but the upper
town, as it came to be called, had stretched out. The Heberts were on
the summit of the cliff, that part of the town where the ancient
bishops' palace stood for so long. Many of the former settlers had come
up here.

"I had hoped Madame de Champlain would return with him," Rose said. "I
wonder if any time will ever come when I shall love myself better than
you."

He bent over and kissed her. He had never quite understood love or known
what happiness was until now.

When the Indians learned of the return of their beloved white chief,
they planned to come in a body, and salute him. Algonquins, Ottawas,
Montagnais, and the more friendly Hurons, came with their gifts, and
smoked the pipe of peace.

In the autumn Champlain commenced the first parochial church, called,
appropriately, Notre Dame de Recouvrance. The Angelus was rung three
times a day. For now the brave old soldier had grown more religious,
there were no more exploring journeys, no more voyages across the stormy
ocean. He had said good-bye to his wife for the last time, though now,
perhaps, he understood her mystical devotion better.

It was indeed a new Quebec. There was no more starvation, no more
digging of roots, and searches for edible food products. Their anxious
faces gave way to French gayety. Up and down the steep road-way, leading
from the warehouses to the rough, tumble-down tenements by the river,
men passed and repassed with jests and jollity, snatches of song or a
merry good-day, for it was indeed good. There were children of mixed
parentage, playing about, for Indian mothers were no uncommon thing. The
fort, the church, and the dwellings high up above, gave it a picturesque
aspect. You heard the boatmen singing their songs of old France as they
went up and down the beautiful river. Stone houses began to appear,
though wigwams still remained. New streets were opened, but they were
loth to level the hills, and some of them remain to this day.

Ralph and Rose Destournier had a happy life. Children grew up around
them. A large, new house received them presently, but they kept a fond
remembrance for the old one that seemed somehow to belong exclusively to
Miladi a