In the first place he had not been in Quebec or Montreal during
his absence from home. Most of the time he had spent disposing of
pelts and furs at Detroit and in extending his trading relations
with other posts; but what mattered a trifling want of facts when
his meridional fancy once began to warm up? A smattering of social
knowledge gained at first hand in his youthful days in France
while he was a student whose parents fondly expected him to
conquer the world, came to his aid, and besides he had saturated
himself all his life with poetry and romance. Scudery, Scarron,
Prevost, Madame La Fayette and Calprenede were the chief sources
of his information touching the life and manners, morals and
gayeties of people who, as he supposed, stirred the surface of
that resplendent and far-off ocean called society. Nothing suited
him better than to smoke a pipe and talk about what he had seen
and done; and the less he had really seen and done the more he had
to tell.

His broad, almost over-virile, kindly and contented face beamed
with the warmth of wholly imaginary recollections while he
recounted with minute circumstantiality to the delighted Alice his
gallant adventures in the crowded and brilliant ball-rooms of the
French-Canadian towns. The rolling burr of his bass voice, deep
and resonant, gave force to the improvised descriptions.

Madame Roussillon heard the heavy booming and presently came
softly back into the door from the kitchen to listen. She leaned
against the facing in an attitude of ponderous attention, a hand,
on her bulging hip. She could not suppress her unbounded
admiration of her liege lord's manly physique, and jealous to