campaign. He sallied forth, and descended upon the bookstores wherever
he found them lurking, in whatsoever recess of the Upper or Lower Town,
and returned home laden with guide-books to Quebec, and monographs upon
episodes of local history, such as are produced in great quantity by the
semi-clerical literary taste of out-of-the-way Catholic capitals. The
colonel (who had gone actively into business, after leaving the army, at
the close of the war) had always a newspaper somewhere about him, but he
was not a reader of many books. Of the volumes in the doctor's library,
he had never in former days willingly opened any but the plays of
Shakespeare, and Don Quixote, long passages of which he knew by heart.
He had sometimes attempted other books, but for the most of Kitty's
favorite authors he professed as frank a contempt as for the
Mound-Builders themselves. He had read one book of travel, namely, The
Innocents Abroad, which he held to be so good a book that he need never
read anything else about the countries of which it treated. When he
brought in this extraordinary collection of pamphlets, both Kitty and
Fanny knew what to expect; for the colonel was as ready to receive
literature at second-hand as to avoid its original sources. He had in
this way picked up a great deal of useful knowledge, and he was famous
for clipping from newspapers scraps of instructive fact, all of which he
relentlessly remembered. He had already a fair outline of the local
history in his mind, and this had been deepened and freshened by Dr.
Ellison's recent talk of his historical studies. Moreover, he had
secured in the course of the present journey, from his wife's and
cousin's reading of divers guide-books, a new store of names and dates,
which he desired to attach to the proper localities with their help.

"Light reading for leisure hours, Fanny," said Kitty, looking askance at
the colonel's literature as she sat down near her cousin after dinner.