t the
commencement of the bombardment. It was a problem now where to find
safe shelter for the citizens. Great numbers of them had fled to
the country beyond, or to other Canadian settlements; for not only
was this terrible bombardment destroying their homes, and
inflicting fearful hurt upon those exposed to it, but provisions
were becoming very scarce; and if the English once got foothold on
the west side of the town, they would be able to cut off Quebec
from her source of supply.

Colin dashed out for tidings so soon as the dawn crept into the
sky; and Madame Drucour and Corinne sat very close together, so
absorbed in listening that they could scarce find words in which to
reassure each other.

They were no longer in the little narrow house where once they had
dwelt. That had been shattered at last by some of the heavier guns
which the enemy had brought to Point Levi, and they had been forced
to abandon it. They were in a house which so far had not been
touched, sheltered as it was behind some of the fortifications. It
belonged to Surgeon Arnoux, a clever and competent man, who was at
present with the army of Bourlemaque; but his younger brother,
Victor, also a surgeon, was still in the city, and he had
generously opened his house to several of the unfortunate citizens
who had been rendered homeless by the bombardment.

At present the house contained as its residents Madame Drucour,
with her brother the Abbe, and Colin and Corinne. The Bishop,
Pontbriand, who was dying himself of a mortal disease, but was
still able to go about amongst the sick and wounded, was another
inmate, beloved of all. The party was waited on sedulously by an
old servant of the Ursulines, Bonnehomme Michel, as she was called,
who was the most faithful, hard-working, and devoted of creatures,
and displayed the greatest ingenuity in contriving, out of the
scantiest of materials, such dishes as should tempt the appetite of
the sick Bishop, and make the rest forget that they were in a
beleaguered city.

Corinne had learned by this time what the horrors of war were like.
Her fair face was both thinner and graver than it had been in past
days. She had known the terrible experience that leaves its mark
upon the witnesses: she had been one of more than one company when
a bursting shell in their midst had brought death to some amongst
those with whom she was sitting. She had seen men--yes, and women
too--struck down in the streets by shot or spli