an
he is, and how true a friend to our nation."

"Nothing is truer, sir; every Canadian will tell you he is the soul of
kindness and sympathy with us, and that he has quite withdrawn the sting
of our being a conquered people. Here I am, a Catholic and a Canadian,
yet as well pleased as if I were in the service of France. His
friendship with our gentry is like the relation of a veritable father
to his family."

"Were not his services very great in the American Revolution? I have
heard General Lafayette speak highly of his name."

"Yes, Monsieur; his services preserved this Province from the enemy, and
we have named him 'the Saviour of Canada.' Pardon me a moment to
announce you."

While waiting to be summoned to the Governor, Lecour glanced around. The
part of the buildings in which he stood was the Old Chateau, a
picturesque structure of the French times, dating from 1694, crowning
its conspicuous position as a landmark by a mediaeval roof of steep
pitch; while a gallery two hundred feet in length ran along the outside,
supported by tall buttresses, which, clinging to the cliff-side, gave it
beneath the same elongated lines as the steep roof above. The result was
exceedingly quaint and castellated. He remembered that he had often seen
it thus from the river. His present point of view gave him, through the
windows and over the gallery, another form of his view of the harbour
and Point Levis, one of the most striking landscapes in the world.
Looking closer about the room, the low-raftered ceilings of an older
time brought another thought to his mind.

"Is not this," he exclaimed to himself, "the very chamber where Count
Frontenac, a hundred years ago, must have received the envoy of Admiral
Phipps with request to surrender, and returned the reply, 'I will answer
your master by the mouth of my cannon.'" He imagined he heard the
gallant veteran say the words.

Turning to the windows towards the courtyard, he saw opposite the
handsome new range of buildings lately erected, and nicknamed "Castle
Haldimand," in which were the apartments of the Governor and his family,
and which, on their further side, fronted on the Place d'Armes.

As a boy he had once looked into the courtyard, and contemplated its
precincts with juvenile awe. Now, he was standing a guest of honour in
the then inaccessible arcana. He was not given much time to continue his
reflections. De la Naudiere came back, brought him across, and conducted
him i