having made it, since nothing was further
from his purpose than a flirtation. But the dark, vicinity, the young
girl's prettiness, the apparent freshness and reliance on his sympathy
from which her frankness came, were too much: he tried to congeal again,
and ended in some feebleness about the scenery, which was indeed very
lonely and wild, after the boat started up the Saguenay, leaving the few
lights of Tadoussac to blink and fail behind her. He had an absurd sense
of being alone in the world there with the young lady; and he suffered
himself to enjoy the situation, which was as perfectly safe as anything
could be. He and Miss Ellison had both come on from Niagara, it seemed,
and they talked of that place, she consciously withholding the fact that
she had noticed Mr. Arbuton there; they had both come down the Rapids of
the St. Lawrence, and they had both stopped a day in Montreal. These
common experiences gave them a surprising interest for each other, which
was enhanced by the discovery that their experiences differed
thereafter, and that whereas she had passed three days at Quebec, he, as
we know, had come on directly from Montreal.

"Did you enjoy Quebec very much, Miss Ellison?"

"O yes, indeed! It's a beautiful old town, with everything in it that I
had always read about and never expected to see. You know it's a walled
city."

"Yes. But I confess I had forgotten it till this morning. Did you find
it all that you expected a walled city to be?"

"More, if possible. There were some Boston people with us there, and
they said it was exactly like Europe. They fairly sighed over it, and it
seemed to remind them of pretty nearly everything they had seen abroad.
They were just married."

"Did that make Quebec look like Europe?"

"No, but I suppose it made them willing to see it in the pleasantest
light. Mrs. March--that was their name--wouldn't allow me to say that
_I_ enjoyed Quebec, because if I hadn't seen Europe, I _could_n't
properly enjoy it. 'You may _think_ you enjoy it,' she was always
saying, 'but that's merely fancy.' Still I cling to my delusion. But I
don't know whether I cared more for Quebec, or the beautiful little
villages in the country all about it. The whole landscape looks just
like a dream of 'Evangeline.'"

"Indeed! I must certainly stop at Quebec. I should like to see an
American landscape that put one in mind of anything. What can your
imagination do for the present scenery?"

"I don't