any one feel sad to see the temples of
dissipation laid in the dust? For my own part, I am a poor casuist, but
nevertheless, I do not think my conscience will suffer from this feeling.
There is a touch of humanity in it, and always some germ of sympathy will
bourgeon and bloom around the once populous abodes of men, whether they
were tenanted by the pure or by the impure.

CHAPTER XVI.

The Last Night--Farewell Hotel Waverley--Friends Old and New--What
followed the Marriage of La Tour le Borgne--Invasion of Col. Church.

Faint nebulous spots in the air, little red disks in a halo of fog,
acquaint us that there are gas-lights this night in the streets of
Halifax. Something new, I take it, this illumination? Carbonated hydrogen
is a novelty as yet in Chebucto. But in this soft and pleasant atmosphere,
I cannot but feel some regret at leaving my old quarters in the Hotel
Waverley. If I feel how much there is to welcome me elsewhere, yet I do
not forsake this queer old city--these strange, dingy, weather-beaten
streets, without reluctance; and chiefly I feel that now I must separate
from some old friends, and from some new ones too, whom I can ill spare.
And if any of these should ever read this little book, I trust they will
not think the less of me because of it. If the salient features of the
province have sometimes appeared to me, a stranger, a trifle distorted,
it may be that my own stand-point is defective. And so farewell! To-morrow
I shall draw nearer homeward, by Windsor and the shores of the Gasperau,
by Grand-Pre and the Basin of Minas. Candles, Henry! and books!

The marriage of La Tour to the widow of his deceased rival, for a time
enabled that brave young adventurer to remain in quiet possession of the
territory. But to the Catholic Court of France, a suspected although not
an avowed Protestant, in commission, was an object of distrust. No matter
what might have been his former services, indeed, his defence of Cape
Sable had saved the French possessions from the encroachments of the
Sterling patent, yet he was heretic to the true faith, and therefore
defenceless in an important point against the attacks of an enemy. Such a
one was La Tour le Borgne, who professed to be a creditor of D'Aulney, and
pressing his suit with all the ardor of bigotry and rapacity, easily
succeeded in "obtaining a decree by which he was authorized to enter upon
the possessions of his _deceased debtor_!" But the adherents of