A Little Girl in Old Quebec

They ate their last crumbs for breakfast. A fine, cutting sleet was in the air, but they kept quite inside of the forest, except when they were afraid of losing the trail. There...

Rose stood looking over the wide expanse of the river to the opposite shore, wondering a little. Down there, miles and miles below, were the English settlements. The men, as tra...

These were sad times for old Quebec and for the little girl who was blossoming into a womanhood that should have been joyous and serene, she asked so little of life.

"But what are you to do with this nice house? Why, the Governor's is hardly better. Will you live here and not at the post? And how pretty the furnishings are?"

The child sat in a dream on a rude, squarely-built settle with a coarse blanket on it of Indian make and some skins thrown over the back, for often at sundown the air grew cool...

The weather was splendid, the sky cloudless, the air scented with the resinous fragrance of cedar, fir, and pine. They paused for a midday lunch and then kept on until dark. In...

Lalotte Dubray had had the gala day of her life. Her peasant wedding had been simple enough. The curé's blessing after the civil ceremony, the dance on the green, the going home...

Laurent Giffard kissed his pretty wife as she sat with some needlework in her hand, telling legendary tales, that were half fairy embellishments, to the little Rose, who was lis...

As if his eyes had summoned her, she turned toward him. Out here in God's wide, beautiful world they could be the same friends, and not fret any one. It might have been dangerou...

"But I never believed you would come to this wild country," he exclaimed, with a half-mischievous smile. "I am afraid the Sieur has let his hopes of the future run riot in his b...

Ralph Destournier went gayly along, whistling a merry French song that was nearly all chorus, climbing, slipping, springing, wondering in his heart as many a man did then what h...

Eustache Boullé seemed in no hurry to return to Tadoussac. He was wonderfully interested in the new fort, in the different improvements, in miladi, who, somehow, seemed to impro...

Champlain found on his arrival five Jesuit priests, who had received a poor welcome, even from their French brethren. The Récollets had offered them the hospitality of their con...

About the middle of August the Sieur de Champlain and Captain François de Pontgrave sailed from Tadoussac for France. The Giffards, Destournier, and several others accompanied t...

She went down to the very boundaries of the other country, this little Rose. One night and one day they gave her up. She lay white and silent and Mère Dubray brought out a white...

The new fort was begun on the summit of the cliff, almost two hundred feet above the water, and the guns would command it up and down. A good deal of stone was used. New houses...

The colony passed a very fair winter. It was in the latter part of April that one night an alarm was given and the big bell at the fort rang out its call to arms.