ngle figures and groups
of men and horses.

It was all gay and bizarre, and it gave Northwick a thrill of boyish
delight. He wondered for a moment why he had never come to Quebec in
winter before, and brought his children. He beckoned to the walnut-faced
driver of one of the carrioles which waited outside the station to take
the passengers across the river, and tossed his bag into the bottom of
the little sledge. He gave the name of a hotel in the Upper Town, and
the driver whipped his tough, long-fetlocked pony over the space of ice
which was kept clear of snow by diligent sweeping with fir-tree tops,
and then up the steep incline of Mountain Hill. The streets were
roadways from house-front to house-front, smooth, elastic levels of
thickly-bedded, triply-frozen snow; and the foot passengers, muffled to
the eyes against the morning cold, came and went among the vehicles in
the middle of the street, or crept along close to the house-walls, to
keep out of the light avalanches of an overnight snow that slipped here
and there from the steep tin roofs.

Northwick's unreasoned gladness grew with each impression of the beauty
and novelty. It quickened associations of his earliest days, and of the
winter among his native hills. He felt that life could be very pleasant
in this latitude; he relinquished the notion he had cherished at times
of going to South America with his family in case he should finally fail
to arrange with the company for his safe return home; he forecast a
future in Quebec where he could build a new home for his children, among
scenes that need not be all so alien. This did not move him from his
fixed intention to retrieve himself, though it gave him the courage of
indefinitely expanded possibilities. He was bent upon the scheme he had
in mind, and as soon as he finished his breakfast he went out to prepare
for it.

III.

The inn he had chosen was one which he remembered, from former visits to
Quebec, as having seemed a resort of old world folk of humble fortunes.
He got a room, and went to it long enough to count the money he had with
him, and find it safe. Then he took one of the notes from the others,
and went to a broker's to get it changed.

The amount seemed to give the broker pause; but he concerned himself
only with the genuineness of the greenback, and after a keen glance at
Northwick's unimpeachable face, he paid over the thousand dollars in
Canadian bills. "We used to make your count