There was only one thing that would really keep him quiet, and that
was a conversation about Quebec. The glories of that wonderful city
entranced his thoughts. He was already floating, in imagination,
with the vast throngs of people that filled its splendid streets,
looking up at the stately houses and churches with their glittering
roofs of tin, and staring his fill at the magnificent shop-windows,
where all the luxuries of the world were displayed. He had heard
that there were more than a hundred shops--separate shops for all
kinds of separate things: some for groceries, and some for shoes,
and some for clothes, and some for knives and axes, and some for
guns, and many shops where they sold only jewels--gold rings, and
diamonds, and forks of pure silver. Was it not so?

He pictured himself, side by side with his goodwife, in the salle a
manger of the Hotel Richelieu, ordering their dinner from a printed
bill of fare. Side by side they were walking on the Dufferin
Terrace, listening to the music of the military band. Side by side
they were watching the wonders of the play at the Theatre de
l'Etoile du Nord. Side by side they were kneeling before the
gorgeous altar in the cathedral. And then they were standing
silent, side by side, in the asylum of the orphans, looking at brown
eyes and blue, at black hair and yellow curls, at fat legs and rosy
cheeks and laughing mouths, while the Mother Superior showed off the
little boys and girls for them to choose. This affair of the choice
was always a delightful difficulty, and here his fancy loved to hang
in suspense, vibrating between rival joys.

Once, at the Riviere du Milieu, after considerable discourse upon
Quebec, there was an interval of silence, during which I succeeded