y the brillancy of their programme. The
province kindled--every village had its Institute!" "But 'sa-a-a-cr!'"
savagely ejaculated Zotique, and his eyes grew intense in their
fierceness."

"The Institut Canadien gradually excited the jealousy of certain
ecclesiastics by its free admissions and the liberality of its
researches. What is known as the "Struggle" commenced. A series of
combined assaults by episcopal summons, a pulpit crusade,
excommunication, refusal of burial, encouragement of dissensions, and
the establishment of rival Institutes bearing names such as "Institut
Canadien Francais," most of which existed only on paper, finally
succeeded in crushing the movement."

"Ac"--ejaculated Zotique.

"The Institute at Dormilliere is the insignificant sole survivor."

"I understand now your Reveilliere," Chrysler said.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE CAMPAIGN PLAN.

On Saturday evening of Chrysler's first week at the Manoir, they went to
the Institute. It was a house down the Dormilliere Street, that held its
head somewhat higher, and tipped it back a little more proudly than the
rest,--a long old fashioned wooden cottage, of many windows, and some
faded pretensions to the ornamental: still elegant in the light curve of
its capacious grey roof, the slender turned pillars of its gallery,
separated by horizontal oval arches, its row of peaked and moulded
dormer windows, its ornaments, its broad staircase climbing up to the
doorway, and the provincial-aristocratic look of its high set-back
position in its garden. The name of a rich money-lender, who had been
feared in days gone by--"Cletus the Ingrate,"--was mentioned under
breath in the stories about it. But ever since his death, many years
before, it had been the faded outer shell into which the intellectual
kernel of Dormilliere life withdrew itself, and in the passage as one
entered, the sign "INSTITUT CANADIEN," which had once had its place on
the front, might be seen resting on the floor,--a beehive and the motto
"Altius Tendimus," occupying the space between the two words.

The interior was a very great contrast to the outside. Its fittings were
in the pleasantest of light-hued paints and varnished pine: maps, casts,
and pictures enlivened the walls and corners; a handsome library and
nucleus of a museum, with reading tables, opened to the left, and a
large debating hall to the right--together occupying the whole of the
principal floor.

That evening the row