has been passed in the midst of it; and she believed these mighty fine
pictures, and was puzzled by Mr. Arbuton's behavior towards them, who
was too little imaginative or too conscientious to make merit for them
out of the things they suggested. He treated the poor altar-pieces of
the Quebec cathedral with the same harsh indifference he would have
shown to the second-rate paintings of a European gallery; doubted the
Vandyck, and cared nothing for the Conception, "in the style of Le
Brun," over the high-altar, though it had the historical interest of
having survived that bombardment of 1759 which destroyed the church.

Kitty innocently singled out the worst picture in the place as her
favorite, and then was piqued, and presently frightened, at his cold
reluctance about it. He made her feel that it was very bad, and that she
shared its inferiority, though he said nothing to that effect. She
learned the shame of not being a connoisseur in a connoisseur's company,
and she perceived more painfully than ever before that a Bostonian, who
had been much in Europe, might be very uncomfortable to the simple,
unravelled American. Yet, she reminded herself, the Marches had been in
Europe, and they were Bostonians also; and they did not go about putting
everything under foot; they seemed to care for everything they saw, and
to have a friendly jest, if not praises, for it. She liked that; she
would have been well enough pleased to have Mr. Arbuton laugh outright
at her picture, and she could have joined him in it. But the look,
however flattered into an air of polite question at last, which he had
bent upon her, seemed to outlaw her and condemn her taste in everything.
As they passed out of the cathedral, she would rather have gone home
than continued the walk as he begged her, if she were not tired, to do;
but this would have been flight, and she was not a coward. So they
sauntered down the Rue Fabrique, and turned into Palace Street. As they
went by the door of Hôtel Musty, her pleasant friends came again into