t they will more readily stay at home, as honest married women
should, and, being well covered--not fat, oh no! not that--that they
will the better resist the icy cold of New France in the winter. For
myself they do not interest me, not on account of the reason which
drove my late Count Frontenac here, he having in the Old Country a
shrewish wife whose temper he could not bear, but because I have found
attractions more to my taste, of which you shall know something.

"I may admit, with some assurance, that my luck in the regard of the
sweet sex, holds amid the altered conditions in which I find myself.
Those French women have not the freshness, and I am certain not the
innocence--you will admit me a judge on both counts--of my own
country-women in the Scots Highlands. But they have a wondrous charm,
a quality of attractiveness which is as deadly to a Highlander as if a
dirk slit his heart. I speak, you may think, in poetry numbers, but
you must do that, if, speaking of women, you would do them justice,
and, incidentally, yourself. We have all sorts and most conditions of
women, and the trade in laces and ribbons and the gew-gaws with which
they adorn themselves, is wonderful for so small a place as Quebec. No
sooner does a consignment of finery come in than it is snapped up, and
the men, too, are admirable dandies, ruffling it, some of them, as if
Louis Quatorze himself were here with his Court.

"Now, only last night I was at the party of the Intendant Bigot, and a
gay crowd we were until the small hours of the morning grew again. His
Excellency, the Marquis Montcalm, has the Frenchman's natural love for
pleasure, but he is a serious, honest man who resolutely puts his duty
before it. Monsieur Vaudreuil is more the gentleman of pleasure, a
governor with a large token of the gallant in him, but for chicane,
knavery and devilry commend me to this fellow the Intendant Bigot.
They say he grows richer every day by robbing his gracious master, the
King, first, and the King's subjects next. I cannot speak with
authority of that, and it matters not, but I can tell you of what goes
on at his chateau, the Chateau Bigot, because, as I write, I am
scarcely cool from its doings.

"There was Bigot himself as master of the revels, a short, stout,
awkward man of more than middle-age, who did not well become the part.
He is, I must add, coarse for my taste, and by his appearance you might
judge him capable of any venture in t