performance of the onerous public duties of the morrow, he fell to
brooding over the new misdeed of the already too obnoxious Narcisse.
From the son, his musings reverted to the menial mother, and, by
contrast, from her to the fair tenants at Stillyside; till, tossed
by the contrary and vexed tides of thought and feeling, he arose,
perturbed from the lounge, went to the window, and, drawing aside
the curtains, beheld in the east the full moon climbing the clear,
blue heavens, amidst a multitude of marble clouds. Struck with
sudden admiration and oblivious pleasure, he opened the folding
frames and stepped into the garden. The air was balmy; and, soothed
by the change, he returned within, reassumed the habiliments of
the day, took a stout, ivory-headed walking cane from its corner,
and, calling a domestic, announced that he should for some time be
absent. His first impulse was to cross a contiguous, half-reclaimed
tract, sprinkled with vast boulders of the glacial period, and
reach the turnpike road that led around the mountain. But before
he turned to commence his stroll he paused to gaze down on the
outstretched city, that, lying as asleep on the arm of the St.
Lawrence, with tin-covered domes, spires, cupolas, minarets, and
radiant roofs, showing like molten silver in the moonbeams,
contrasting with the dark shingles covering most of the houses,
presented an enchanted-looking scene of glory and of gloom. On the
left, and oldest of its class, was the Bonsecours Church, with its
high-pitched roof, and airy, but inelegant, campanile, refulgent
as if cut from some rock of diamond. Nearer, was the Court House,
and, beneath it, the Jail; and, behind them both, the dusky expanse
of the poplar-planted Champ de Mars. In the midst of the city rose
the tin-mailed tower and spire of the French Cathedral, and, at
its rear, loomed the neighboring, wall-girt, solemn Seminary of
Saint Sulpice. The bright, precipitous roof of the Church of the
Recollets, and the spangled canopy of the vast foundation of the
Grey Nuns reposed resplendent; and, within its ample enclosure,
luminous as a moon-lit lake, the quadrangled and cloistered College
of Montreal. Beyond these, in the midst of the shining river,
duskily slumbered the little, fortified and wooded Island of Sainte
Helene; and up the stream, apast the petty promontory of Pointe
Saint Charles, stretched the low, umbrageous lapse of Nuns Island,
whence the eye followed the bending flood,