On a fine morning early in July Mrs. Keith sat with a companion,
enjoying the sunshine, near the end of Dufferin Avenue, which, skirts
the elevated ground above the city of Quebec. Behind her rose the
Heights of Abraham where the dying Wolfe wrested Canada from France; in
front, churches, banks, offices and dwellings, curiously combining the
old and the very new, rose tier on tier to the great red Frontenac
Hotel. It is a picturesque city that climbs back from its noble river;
supreme, perhaps, in its situation among Canadian towns, and still
retaining something of the exotic stamp set upon it by its first
builders whose art was learned in the France of long ago.

From where she sat Mrs. Keith could not see the ugly wooden wharves.
Her glance rested on the flood that flowed toward her, still and deep,
through a gorge lined with crags and woods, and then, widening rapidly,
washed the shores of a low, green island. Opposite her white houses
shone on the Levis ridge, and beyond this a vast sweep of country,
steeped in gradations of color that ended in ethereal blue, rolled away
toward the hills of Maine.

Mrs. Keith and her companion were both elderly. They had played their
part in the drama of life, one of them in a strenuous manner, and now
they were content with the position of lookers-on. So far, however,
nothing had occurred since breakfast to excite their interest.

"I think I'll go to Montreal by the special boat tonight," Mrs. Keith
said with characteristic briskness. "The hotel's crowded, the town's
full, and you keep meeting people whom you know or have heard about. I
came here to see Canada, but I find it hard to realize that I'm not in
London; I'm tired of the bustle."