othing but a friendly climate is
needed to make this one of the most charming scenes the heart could
imagine.

Kitty and Mr. Arbuton drove out towards Sillery by the St. Louis Road,
and already the jealous foliage that hides the pretty villas and stately
places of that aristocratic suburb was tinged in here and there a bough
with autumnal crimson or yellow; in the meadows here and there a vine
ran red along the grass; the loath choke-cherries were ripening in the
fence corners; the air was full of the pensive jargoning of the crickets
and grasshoppers, and all the subtle sentiment of the fading summer.
Their hearts were open to every dreamy influence of the time; their
driver understood hardly any English, and their talk might safely be
made up of those harmless egotisms which young people exchange,--those
strains of psychological autobiography which mark advancing intimacy and
in which they appear to each other the most uncommon persons that ever
lived, and their experiences and emotions and ideas are the more
surprisingly unique because exactly alike.

It seemed a very short league to Sillery when they left the St. Louis
Road, and the driver turned his horses' heads towards the river, down
the winding sylvan way that descended to the shore; and they had not so
much desire, after all, to explore the site of the old mission.
Nevertheless, they got out and visited the little space once occupied by
the Jesuit chapel, where its foundations may yet be traced in the grass,
and they read the inscription on the monument lately raised by the
parish to the memory of the first Jesuit missionary to Canada, who died
at Sillery. Then there seemed nothing more to do but admire the mighty
rafts and piles of lumber; but their show of interest in the local
celebrity had stirred the pride of Sillery, and a little French boy
entered the chapel-yard, and gave Kitty a pamphlet history of the place,
for which he would not suffer himself to be paid; and a sweet-faced
young Englishwoman came out of the house across the way, and
hesitatingly asked if they would not like to see the Jesuit Residence.
She led them indoors, and showed them how the ancient edifice had been
encased by the modern house, and bade them note, from the deep shelving
window-seats, that the stone walls were three feet thick. The rooms were
low-ceiled and quaintly shaped, but they borrowed a certain grandeur
from this massiveness; and it was easy to figure the priests in bl