n the
battle-field and its surroundings into a park, which by nature and
association would be one of the most beautiful in our world.

Yet, in spite of jails on the one side and convents on the other and the
thin black wreck of the Quebec Railway Bridge, lying like a dumped
car-load of tin cans in the river, the Eastern Gate to Canada is noble
with a dignity beyond words. We saw it very early, when the under sides
of the clouds turned chilly pink over a high-piled, brooding,
dusky-purple city. Just at the point of dawn, what looked like the
Sultan Harun-al-Raschid's own private shallop, all spangled with
coloured lights, stole across the iron-grey water, and disappeared into
the darkness of a slip. She came out again in three minutes, but the
full day had come too; so she snapped off her masthead, steering and
cabin electrics, and turned into a dingy white ferryboat, full of cold
passengers. I spoke to a Canadian about her. 'Why, she's the old
So-and-So, to Port Levis,' he answered, wondering as the Cockney wonders
when a stranger stares at an Inner Circle train. This was _his_ Inner
Circle--the Zion where he was all at ease. He drew my attention to
stately city and stately river with the same tranquil pride that we each
feel when the visitor steps across our own threshold, whether that be
Southampton Water on a grey, wavy morning; Sydney Harbour with a regatta
in full swing; or Table Mountain, radiant and new-washed after the
Christmas rains. He had, quite rightly, felt personally responsible for
the weather, and every flaming stretch of maple since we had entered the
river. (The North-wester in these parts is equivalent to the
South-easter elsewhere, and may impress a guest unfavourably.)

Then the autumn sun rose, and the man smiled. Personally and politically
he said he loathed the city--but it was his.

'Well,' he asked at last, 'what do you think? Not so bad?'

'Oh no. Not at all so bad,' I answered; and it wasn't till much later
that I realised that we had exchanged the countersign which runs clear
round the Empire.

A PEOPLE AT HOME

An up-country proverb says, 'She was bidden to the wedding and set down
to grind corn.' The same fate, reversed, overtook me on my little
excursion. There is a crafty network of organisations of business men
called Canadian Clubs. They catch people who look interesting, assemble
their members during the mid-day lunch-hour, and, tying the victim to a
steak, bid him dis