you
gently back to earth. You must eat, don't you see, and there's nothing
disgraceful about what you're obliged to do; and so--it's all right."

"Isabel, Isabel," cried her husband, "you have a wonderful mind, and
its workings always amaze me. But be careful, my dear; be careful. Don't
work it too hard. The human brain, you know: delicate organ."

"Well, you understand what I mean; and I think it's one of the great
charms of a husband, that you're not forced to express yourself to him.
A husband," continued Isabel, sententiously, poising a bit of meringue
between her thumb and finger,--for they had reached that point in the
repast, "a husband is almost as good as another woman!"

In the parlor they found the Ellisons, and exchanged the history of the
day with them.

"Certainly," said Mrs. Ellison, at the end, "it's been a pleasant day
enough, but what of the night? You've been turned out, too, by those
people who came on the steamer, and who might as well have stayed on
board to-night; have you got another room?"

"Not precisely," said Isabel; "we have a coop in the fifth story, right
under the roof."

Mrs. Ellison turned energetically upon her husband and cried in tones of
reproach, "Richard, Mrs. March has a room!"

"A coop, she said," retorted that amiable Colonel, "and we're too good
for that. The clerk is keeping us in suspense about a room, because
he means to surprise us with something palatial at the end. It 's his
joking way."

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Ellison. "Have you seen him since dinner?"

"I have made life a burden to him for the last half-hour," returned the
Colonel, with the kindliest smile.

"O Richard," cried his wife, in despair of his amendment, "you wouldn't
make life a burden to a mouse!" And having nothing else for it, she
laughed, half in sorrow, half in fondness.

"Well, Fanny," the Colonel irrelevantly answered, "put on your hat and
things, and let's all go up to Durham Terrace for a promenade. I know
our friends want to go. It's something worth seeing; and by the time we
get back, the clerk will have us a perfectly sumptuous apartment."

Nothing, I think, more enforces the illusion of Southern Europe in
Quebec than the Sunday-night promenading on Durham Terrace. This is the
ample space on the brow of the cliff to the left of the citadel, the
noblest and most commanding position in the whole city, which was
formerly occupied by the old castle of Saint Louis, where dwelt the
brave