thick, and form a
series of low-vaulted corridors, as heavy, he says, as the casemates
of a fortress. There is a beautiful old carved staircase there, of
the same date; and he liked the president, a priest, ever so much;
and we like the looks of all the priests we see; they are so handsome
and polite, and they all speak English, with some funny little
defect. The other day, we asked such a nice young priest about the
way to Hare Point, where it is said the Recollet friars had their
first mission on the marshy meadows: he didn't know of this bit of
history, and we showed him our book. "Ah! you see, the book say
'pro-_bab_-ly the site.' If it had said _certainly_, I should have
known. But pro-_bab_-ly, pro-_bab_-ly, you see!" However, he showed
us the way, and down we went through the Lower Town, and out past the
General Hospital to this Pointe aux Lievres, which is famous also
because somewhere near it, on the St. Charles, Jacques Cartier
wintered in 1536, and kidnapped the Indian king Donnacona, whom he
carried to France. And it was here Montcalm's forces tried to rally
after their defeat by Wolfe. (Please read this several times to Uncle
Jack, so that he can have it impressed upon him how faithful I am in
my historical researches.)

It makes me dreadfully angry and sad to think the French should have
been robbed of Quebec, after what they did to build it. But it is
still quite a French city in everything, even to sympathy with France
in this Prussian war, which you would hardly think they would care
about. Our landlady says the very boys in the street know about the
battles, and explain, every time the French are beaten, how they were
outnumbered and betrayed,--something the way we used to do in the
first of our war.

I suppose you will think I am crazy; but I do wish Uncle Jack would
wind up his practice at Eriecreek, and sell the house, and come to
live at Quebec. I have been asking prices of things, and I find that
everything is very cheap, even according to the Eriecreek standard;
we could get a beautiful house on the St. Louis Road for two hundred
a year; beef is ten or twelve cents a pound, and everything else in
proportion. Then besides that, the washing is sent out into the
country to be done by the peasant-women, and there isn't a crumb of
bread baked in the house, bu