uld not venture upon unsafe ground; but her tender eyes
looked her unutterable longing to believe in the charming possibilities
that the clerks suggested. She bemoaned herself before the corded silks,
which there was no time to have made up; the piece-velvets and the linens
smote her to the heart. But they also stimulated her invention, and she
bought and bought of the made-up wares in real or fancied needs, till
Basil represented that neither their purses nor their trunks could stand
any more. "O, don't be troubled about the trunks, dearest," she cried,
with that gayety which nothing but shopping can kindle in a woman's
heart; while he faltered on from counter to counter, wondering at which
he should finally swoon from fatigue. At last, after she had declared
repeatedly, "There, now, I am done," she briskly led the way back to the
hotel to pack up her purchases.

Basil parted with her at the door. He was a man of high principle
himself, and that scene in the smugglers' den, and his wife's preparation
for transgression, were revelations for which nothing could have consoled
him but a paragon umbrella for five dollars, and an excellent business
suit of Scotch goods for twenty.

When some hours later he sat with Isabel on the forward promenade of the
steamboat for Quebec, and summed up the profits of their shopping, they
were both in the kindliest mood towards the poor Canadians, who had built
the admirable city before them.

For miles the water front of Montreal is superbly faced with quays and
locks of solid stone masonry, and thus she is clean and beautiful to the
very feet. Stately piles of architecture, instead of the foul old
tumble-down warehouses that dishonor the waterside in most cities, rise
from the broad wharves; behind these spring the twin towers of Notre
Dame, and the steeples of the other churches above the city roofs.

"It's noble, yes, it's noble, after the best that Europe can show," said
Isabel, with enthusiasm; "and what a pleasant day we've had here! Doesn't
even our quarrel show 'couleur de rose' in this light?"

"One side of it," answered Basil, dreamily, "but all the rest is black."

"What do you mean, my dear?"

"Why, the Nelson Monument, with the sunset on it at the head of the
street there."

The affect was so fine that Isabel could not be angry with him for
failing to heed what she had said, and she mused a moment with him.

"It seems rather far-fetched," she said presently, "to erec