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A Chance Acquaintance by William Dean Howells
page 92 of 203 (45%)
fifty years ago by two of our French officers when their sister took
the veil, and has never been extinguished since, except during the
siege of 1759. Of course, I think a story might be written about
_this_; and the truth is, the possibilities of fiction in Quebec are
overpowering; I go about in a perfect haze of romances, and meet
people at every turn who have nothing to do but invite the passing
novelist into their houses, and have their likenesses done at once
for heroes and heroines. They needn't change a thing about them, but
sit just as they are; and if this is in the present, only think how
the whole past of Quebec must be crying out to be put into historical
romances!

I wish you could see the houses, and how substantial they are. I
can only think of Eriecreek as an assemblage of huts and bark-lodges
in contrast. Our boarding-house is comparatively slight, and has
stone walls only a foot and a half thick, but the average is two
feet and two and a half; and the other day Dick went through the
Laval University,--he goes everywhere and gets acquainted with
everybody,--and saw the foundation walls of the first building, which
have stood all the sieges and conflagrations since the seventeenth
century; and no wonder, for they are six feet thick, and form a
series of low-vaulted corridors, as heavy, he says, as the casemates
of a fortress. There is a beautiful old carved staircase there, of
the same date; and he liked the president, a priest, ever so much;
and we like the looks of all the priests we see; they are so handsome
and polite, and they all speak English, with some funny little
defect. The other day, we asked such a nice young priest about the
way to Hare Point, where it is said the Recollet friars had their
first mission on the marshy meadows: he didn't know of this bit of
history, and we showed him our book. "Ah! you see, the book say
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