After all, nothing is so
tiresome as continual exchange of sympathy or so apt to end in mutual
dislike,--except gratitude. So the ladies parted friends till dinner, and
drove off in separate carriages.
As in other show cities, there is a routine at Quebec for travellers who
come on Saturday and go on Monday, and few depart from it. Our friends
necessarily, therefore, drove first to the citadel. It was raining one of
those cold rains by which the scarce-banished winter reminds the Canadian
fields of his nearness even in midsummer, though between the bitter
showers the air was sultry and close; and it was just the light in which
to see the grim strength of the fortress next strongest to Gibraltar in
the world. They passed a heavy iron gateway, and up through a winding
lane of masonry to the gate of the citadel, where they were delivered
into the care of Private Joseph Drakes, who was to show them such parts
of the place as are open to curiosity. But, a citadel which has never
stood a siege, or been threatened by any danger more serious than
Fenianism, soon becomes, however strong, but a dull piece of masonry to
the civilian; and our tourists more rejoiced in the crumbling fragment of
the old French wall which the English destroyed than in all they had
built; and they valued the latter work chiefly for the glorious prospects
of the St.
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