"the most delightful place in the whole world; for, do you know," he said, "I have got a muffin."
With the afternoon numerous riding parties are formed, for you cannot go three miles out of Quebec without coming to something beautiful; and calls of a more formal nature are paid; a military band performs on Durham Terrace or the Garden, which then assume the appearance of most fashionable promenades. The evening is spent in the ball-room, or at small social dancing parties, or during the winter, before ten at night, in the galleries of the House of Assembly; and the morning is well advanced before the world of Quebec is hushed in sleep.
Society is contained in very small limits at Quebec. Its élite are grouped round the ramparts and in the suburb of St. Louis. The city until recently has occupied a very isolated position, and has depended upon itself for society. It is therefore sociable, friendly, and hospitable; and though there is gossip—for where is it not to be found?—I never knew any in which there was so little of ill-nature. The little world in the upper part of the city is probably the most brilliant to be found anywhere in so small a compass. But there is a world below, another nation, seldom mentioned in the aristocratic quarter of St. Louis, where vice, crime, poverty, and misery jostle each other, as pleasure and politics do in the upper town. This is the suburb of St. Roch, in whose tall dark houses and fetid alleys those are to be found whose birthright is toil, who spend life in supplying the necessities of to-day, while indulging in gloomy apprehensions for to-morrow—who have not one comfort in the past to cling to, or one hope for the future to cheer.
