ez le Roi!
Sauvez le Roi!
Que toujours glorieux.
Louis Victorieux,
Voye ses ennemis
Toujours soumis!'"

The company all joined in the chorus, the gentlemen raising their cups,
the ladies waving their handkerchiefs, and male and female blending in
a storm of applause that made the old walls ring with joy. Songs and
speeches followed in quick succession, cutting as with a golden blade
the hours of the dessert into quinzaines of varied pleasures.

The custom of the times had reduced speechmaking after dinner to a
minimum. The ladies, as Father de Berey wittily remarked, preferred
private confession to public preaching; and long speeches, without
inlets for reply, were the eighth mortal sin which no lady would
forgive.

The Bourgeois, however, felt it incumbent upon himself to express his
deep thanks for the honor done his house on this auspicious occasion.
And he remarked that the doors of Belmont, so long closed by reason of
the absence of Pierre, would hereafter be ever open to welcome all
his friends. He had that day made a gift of Belmont, with all its
belongings, to Pierre, and he hoped,--the Bourgeois smiled as he
said this, but he would not look in a quarter where his words struck
home,--he hoped that some one of Quebec's fair daughters would assist
Pierre in the menage of his home and enable him to do honor to his
housekeeping.

Immense was the applause that followed the short, pithy speech of the
Bourgeois. The ladies blushed and praised, the gentlemen cheered and
enjoyed in anticipation the renewal of the old hospitalities of Belmont.

"The skies are raining plum cakes!" exclaimed the Chevalier La Corne
to his lively companion. "Joy's golden drops are only distilled in the
alembic of woman's heart! What think you, Hortense? Which of Quebec's
fair daughters will be willing to share Belmont with Pierre?"

"Oh, any of them would!" replied she. "But why did the Bourgeois
restrict his choice to the ladies of Quebec, when he knew I came from
the Three Rivers?"

"Oh, he was afraid of you, Hortense; you would make Belmont too good
for this world! What say you, Father de Berry? Do you ever walk on the
cape?"

The friar, in a merry mood, had been edging close to Hortense. "I love,
of all things, to air my gray gown on the cape of a breezy afternoon,"
replied the jovial Recollet, "when the fashionables are all out, and
every lady is putting her best foot foremost. It is then