paper, and the bottles of coloured water in the shop windows; of
Medallion's, the stoop that surrounded three sides of the building,
and the notices of sales tacked up, pasted up, on the front; of the Hotel
Louis Quinze, the deep dormer windows, the solid timbers, and the veranda
that gave its front distinction--for this veranda had been the pride of
several generations of landlords, and its heavy carving and bulky grace
were worth even more admiration than Pontiac gave to it.

The square which the two roads and the four corners made was, on week-
days, the rendezvous of Pontiac, and the whole parish; on Sunday mornings
the rendezvous was shifted to the large church on the hill, beside which
was the house of the Cure, Monsieur Fabre. Travelling towards the south,
out of the silken haze of a mid-summer day, you would come in time to the
hills of Maine; north, to the city of Quebec and the river St. Lawrence;
east, to the ocean; and west, to the Great Lakes and the land of the
English. Over this bright province Britain raised her flag, but only
Medallion and a few others loved it for its own sake, or saluted it in
the English tongue.

In the drab velvety dust of these four corners, were gathered, one night
of July a generation ago, the children of the village and many of their
elders. All the events of that epoch were dated from the evening of this
particular day. Another day of note the parish cherished, but it was
merely a grave fulfilment of the first.

Upon the veranda-stoop of the Louis Quinze stood a man of apparently
about twenty-eight years of age. When you came to study him closely,
some sense of time and experience in his look told you that he might be
thirty-eight, though his few grey hairs seemed but to emphasise a certain
youthfulness in him. His eye was full, singularly clear, almost benign,