Perhaps it is wonderful that none of them shows anything of the kind. In
their desertion they have multiplied and prospered; they may have a
national grief, but they hide it well; and probably they have none.
Later, one of them appeared to Isabel in the person of the pale, slender
young ecclesiastic who had shown her and Basil the pictures in the
country church. She was confessing to the priest, and she was not at all
surprised to find that he was Basil in a suit of medieval armor. He had
an immense cross on his shoulder.
"To get this cross to the top of the mountain," thought Isabel, "we must
have two horses. Basil," she added, aloud, "we must have two horses!"
"Ten, if you like, my dear," answered his voice, cheerfully, "though I
think we'd better ride up in the omnibus."
She opened her eyes, and saw him smiling.
"We're in sight of Quebec," he said. "Come out as soon as you can,--come
out into the seventeenth century."
IX. QUEBEC.
Isabel hurried out upon the forward promenade, where all the other
passengers seemed to be assembled, and beheld a vast bulk of gray and
purple rock, swelling two hundred feet up from the mists of the river,
and taking the early morning light warm upon its face and crown.
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