The travellers all met at breakfast and duly discussed the adventures of
the night; and for the rest, the forenoon passed rapidly and slowly with
Basil and Isabel, as regret to leave Quebec, or the natural impatience of
travellers to be off, overcame them. Isabel spent part of it in shopping,
for she had found some small sums of money and certain odd corners in her
trunks still unappropriated, and the handsome stores on the Rue Fabrique
were very tempting. She said she would just go in and look; and the wise
reader imagines the result. As she knelt over her boxes, trying so to
distribute her purchases as to make them look as if they were old,--old
things of hers, which she had brought all the way round from Boston with
her,--a fleeting touch of conscience stayed her hand.
"Basil," she said, "perhaps we'd better declare some of these things.
What's the duty on those?" she asked, pointing to certain articles.
"I don't know. About a hundred per cent. ad valorem."
"C'est a dire--?"
"As much as they cost."
"O then, dearest," responded Isabel indignantly, "it can't be wrong to
smuggle! I won't declare a thread!"
"That's very well for you, whom they won't ask. But what if they ask me
whether there's anything to declare?"
Isabel looked at her husband and hesitated. Then she replied in terms
that I am proud to record in honor of American womanhood: "You mustn't
fib about--it, Basil" (heroically); "I couldn't respect you if you did,"
(tenderly); "but" (with decision) "you must slip out of it some way!"
The ladies of the Ellison party, to whom she put the case in the parlor,
agreed with her perfectly. They also had done a little shopping in
Quebec, and they meant to do more at Montreal before they returned to the
States. Mrs. Ellison was disposed to look upon Isabel's compunctions as a
kind of treason to the sex, to be forgiven only because so quickly
repented.
The Ellisons were going up the Saguenay before coming on to Boston, and
urged our friends hard to go with them. "No, that must be for another
time," said Isabel. "Mr. March has to be home by a certain day; and we
shall just get back in season." Then she made them promise to spend a day
with her in Boston, and the Colonel coming to say that he had a carriage
at the door for their excursion to Lorette, the two parties bade good-by
with affection and many explicit hopes of meeting soon again.
"What do you think of them, dearest?" demanded Isabel, as she sallied out
with Basil for a final look at Quebec.
"The young lady is the nicest; and the other is well enough, too. She is
a good deal like you, but with the sense of humor left out. You've only
enough to save you."
"Well, her husband is jolly enough for both of them. He's funnier than
you, Basil, and he hasn't any of your little languid airs and
affectations. I don't know but I'm a bit disappointed in my choice,
darling; but I dare say I shall work out of it. In fact, I don't know but
the Colonel is a little too jolly. This drolling everything is rather
fatiguing." And having begun, they did not stop till they had taken their
friends to pieces. Dismayed, then, they hastily reconstructed them, and
said that they were among the pleasantest people they ever knew, and they
were really very sorry to part with them, and they should do everything
to make them have a good time in Boston.
They were sauntering towards Durham Terrace where they leaned long upon
the iron parapet and blest themselves with the beauty of the prospect. A
tender haze hung upon the landscape and subdued it till the scene was as
a dream before them. As in a dream the river lay, and dream-like the
shipping moved or rested on its deep, broad bosom. Far off stretched the
happy fields with their dim white villages; farther still the mellow
heights melted into the low hovering heaven. The tinned roofs of the
Lower Town twinkled in the morning sun; around them on every hand, on
that Monday forenoon when the States were stirring from ocean to ocean in
feverish industry, drowsed the gray city within her walls; from the
flag-staff of the citadel hung the red banner of Saint George in sleep.
Their hearts were strangely and deeply moved. It seemed to them that they
looked upon the last stronghold of the Past, and that afar off to the
southward they could hear the marching hosts of the invading Present; and
as no young and loving soul can relinquish old things without a pang,
they sighed a long mute farewell to Quebec.
Next summer they would come again, yes; but, ah me' every one knows what
next summer is!