return on
their beat. Occasionally there was a ruffle of drums: the whole
guard turned out and presented arms, as some officer of high rank, or
ecclesiastical dignitary, passed through to pay his respects to the
Governor, or transact business at the vice-regal court. Gentlemen on
foot, with chapeaux and swords, carrying a cloak on their shoulders;
ladies in visiting dress; habitans and their wives in unchanging
costume; soldiers in uniform, and black-gowned clergy, mingled in a
moving picture of city life, which, had not Amelie's thoughts been so
preoccupied to-day, would have afforded her great delight to look out
upon.

The Lady de Tilly had rather wearied of the visit of the two ladies of
the city, Madame de Grandmaison and Madame Couillard, who had bored her
with all the current gossip of the day. They were rich and fashionable,
perfect in etiquette, costume, and most particular in their society;
but the rank and position of the noble Lady de Tilly made her friendship
most desirable, as it conferred in the eyes of the world a patent of
gentility which held good against every pretension to overtop it.

The stream of city talk from the lips of the two ladies had the merit
of being perfect of its kind--softly insinuating and sweetly censorious,
superlative in eulogy and infallible in opinion. The good visitors most
conscientiously discharged what they deemed a great moral and social
duty by enlightening the Lady de Tilly on all the recent lapses and
secrets of the capital. They slid over slippery topics like skaters on
thin ice, filling their listener with anxiety lest they should break
through. But Madame de Grandmaison and her companion were too well
exercised in the gymnastics of gossip to overbalance themselves. Half
Quebec was run over and run down in the course of an hour.

Lady de Tilly listened with growing impatience to their frivolities, but
she knew society too well to quarrel with its follies when it was of no
service to do so: she contented herself with hoping it was not so bad.
The Pope was not Catholic enough to suit some people, but, for her part,
she had generally found people better than they were called.

A rather loud but well-bred exclamation of Madame de Grandmaison roused
Amelie from her day-dream.

"Not going to the Intendant's ball at the Palace, my Lady de Tilly!
neither you nor Mademoiselle de Repentigny, whom we are so sorry not to
have seen to-day? Why, it is to be the most magnificent