William Dean Howells: 27 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). William Dean Howells
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us. Kitty, read something to your suffering cousins about Donnacona,—he sounds uncommonly like an Irishman," answered the colonel, establishing himself in an easy-chair; and Kitty picked up a small sketch of the history of Quebec, and, opening it, fell into the trance which came upon her at the touch of a book, and read on for some pages to herself.
"Well, upon my word," said the colonel, "I might as well be reading about Donnacona myself, for any comfort I get."
"O Dick, I forgot. I was just looking. Now I'm really going to commence."
"No, not yet," cried Mrs. Ellison, rising on her elbow. "Where is Mr. Arbuton?"
"What has he to do with Donnacona, my dear?"
"Everything. You know he's stayed on our account, and I never heard of anything so impolite, so inhospitable, as offering to read without him. Go and call him, Richard, do."
"O, no," pleaded Kitty, "he won't care about it. Don't call him, Dick."
"Why, Kitty, I'm surprised at you! When you read so beautifully! Yon needn't be ashamed, I'm sure."
"I'm not ashamed; but, at the same time, I don't want to read to him."
"Well, call him any way, colonel. He's in his room."
"If you do," said Kitty, with superfluous dignity, "I must go away."
"Very well, Kitty, just as you please. Only I want Richard to witness that I'm not to blame if Mr. Arbuton thinks us unfeeling or neglectful."
"O, if he doesn't say what he thinks, it'll make no difference."
"It seems to me that this is a good deal of fuss to make about one human being, a mere passing man and brother of a day, isn't it?" said the colonel. "Go on with Donnacona, do."
There came a knock at the door. Kitty leaped nervously to her feet, and fled out of the room. But it was only the little French serving-maid upon some errand which she quickly despatched.
"Well, now what do you think?" asked Mrs. Ellison.
"Why, I think you've a surprising knowledge of French for one who studied it at school. Do you suppose she understood you?"
"O, nonsense! You know I mean Kitty and her very queer behavior. Richard, if you moon at me in that stupid way," she continued, "I shall certainly end in an insane asylum. Can't you see what's under your very nose?"
"Yes, I can, Fanny," answered the colonel, "if anything's there. But I give you my word, I don't know any more than millions yet unborn what you're driving at." The colonel took up the book which Kitty had thrown down, and went to his room to try to read up Donnacona for himself, while his wife penitently turned to a pamphlet in French, which he had bought with the others. "After all," she thought, "men will be men"; and seemed not to find the fact wholly wanting in consolation.
A few minutes after there was a murmur of voices in the entry without, at a window looking upon the convent garden, where it happened to Mr. Arbuton, descending from his attic chamber, to find Kitty standing, a pretty shape against the reflected light of the convent roofs, and amidst a little greenery of house-plants, tall geraniums, an overarching ivy, some delicate roses. She had paused there, on her way from Fanny's to her own room, and was looking into the garden, where a pair of silent nuns were pacing up and down the paths, turning now their backs with the heavy sable coiffure sweeping their black robes, and now their still, mask-like faces, set in that stiff framework of white linen. Sometimes they came so near that she could distinguish their features, and imagine an expression that she should know if she saw them again; and while she stood self-forgetfully feigning a character for each of them, Mr. Arbuton spoke to her and took his place at her side.
"We're remarkably favored in having this bit of opera under our windows, Miss Ellison," he said, and smiled as Kitty answered, "O, is it really like an opera? I never saw one, but I could imagine it must be beautiful," and they both looked on in silence a moment, while the nuns moved, shadow-like, out of the garden, and left it empty.
Then Mr. Arbuton said something to which Kitty answered simply, "I'll see if my cousin doesn't want me," and presently stood beside Mrs. Ellison's sofa, a little conscious in color. "Fanny, Mr. Arbuton has asked me to go and see the cathedral with him. Do you think it would be right?"
Mrs. Ellison's triumphant heart rose to her lips. "Why, you dear, particular, innocent little goose," she cried, flinging her arms about Kitty, and kissing her till the young girl blushed again; "of course it would! Go! You mustn't stay mewed up in here. I sha'n't be able to go about with you; and if I can judge by the colonel's breathing, as he calls it, from the room in there, he won't, at present. But the idea of your having a question of propriety!" And indeed it was the first time Kitty had ever had such a thing, and the remembrance of it put a kind of constraint upon her, as she strolled demurely beside Mr. Arbuton towards the cathedral.
"You must be guide," said he, "for this is my first day in Quebec, you know, and you are an old inhabitant in comparison."
"I'll show the way," she answered, "if you'll interpret the sights. I think I must be stranger to them than you, in spite of my long residence. Sometimes I'm afraid that I do only fancy I enjoy these things, as Mrs. March said, for I've no European experiences to contrast them with. I know that it seems very delightful, though, and quite like what I should expect in Europe."
"You'd expect very little of Europe, then, in most things; though there's no disputing that it's a very pretty illusion of the Old World."
A few steps had brought them into the market-square in front of the cathedral, where a little belated traffic still lingered in the few old peasant-women hovering over baskets of such fruits and vegetables as had long been out of season in the States, and the housekeepers and serving-maids cheapening these wares. A sentry moved mechanically up and down before the high portal of the Jesuit Barracks, over the arch of which were still the letters I. H. S. carved long ago upon the keystone; and the ancient edifice itself, with its yellow stucco front and its grated windows, had every right to be a monastery turned barracks in France or Italy. A row of quaint stone houses—inns and shops—formed the upper side of the Square; while the modern buildings of the Rue Fabrique on the lower side might serve very well for that show of improvement which deepens the sentiment of the neighboring antiquity and decay in Latin towns. As for the cathedral, which faced the convent from across the Square, it was as cold and torpid a bit of Renaissance as could be found in Rome itself. A red-coated soldier or two passed through the Square; three or four neat little French policemen lounged about in blue uniforms and flaring havelocks; some walnut-faced, blue-eyed old citizens and peasants sat upon the thresholds of the row of old houses, and gazed dreamily through the smoke of their pipes at the slight stir and glitter of shopping about the fine stores of the Rue Fabrique. An air of serene disoccupation pervaded the place, with which the occasional riot of the drivers of the long row of calashes and carriages in front of the cathedral did not discord. Whenever a stray American wandered into the Square, there was a wild flight of these drivers towards him, and his person was lost to sight amidst their pantomime. They did not try to underbid each other, and they were perfectly good-humored; as soon as he had made his choice, the rejected multitude returned to their places on the curbstone, pursuing the successful aspirant with inscrutable jokes as he drove off, while the horses went on munching the contents of their leathern head-bags, and tossing them into the air to shake down the lurking grains of corn.
"It is like Europe; your friends were right," said Mr. Arbuton as they escaped into the cathedral from one of these friendly onsets. "It's quite the atmosphere of foreign travel, and you ought to be able to realize the feelings of a tourist."
A priest was saying mass at one of the side-altars, assisted by acolytes in their every-day clothes; and outside of the railing a market-woman, with a basket of choke-cherries, knelt among a few other poor people. Presently a young English couple came in, he with a dashing India scarf about his hat, and she very stylishly dressed, who also made their genuflections with the rest, and then sat down and dropped their heads in prayer.
"This is like enough Europe, too," murmured Mr. Arbuton. "It's very good