distributed among the people, who received them with most devout eagerness. These cakes I understood to be the pious offering of some devotee, more rich than wise, who certainly adopted a somewhat ludicrous expedient— ‘To bribe the rage of ill-requited heaven,’ with gingerbread. [Illustration: _Prescott Gate, Quebec._] [Illustration: _View from the Citadel,_ Quebec.] “In catholic countries there are few public buildings, either for use or ornament, but are in some way connected with religion, and most frequently with charity. There are several charitable catholic institutions in Quebec: the principal of these is the Hôtel-Dieu, founded in 1637 by the Duchess d’Aiguillon, (sister to Cardinal Richelieu,) for the poor sick. The establishment consists of a superior and thirty-six nuns. The General Hospital is a similar institution, consisting of a superior and forty-three nuns, founded by St. Vallier, bishop of Quebec, in 1693, for “Poor Sick Mendicants.” It stands about a mile from the town, in a pleasant meadow, watered by the Charles. The style of building is simple, and well suited to the purposes of the establishment, consisting only of “such plain roofs as piety could raise.” The present superior is a lady of Irish extraction, her age apparently bordering on thirty. In this conventual seclusion, (devoted to what might well seem to the mind of a delicate female the most disgusting duties of humanity) she exhibits that easy elegance, and softened cheerfulness of manner, so often affected and rarely attained by the many votaries who dress their looks and carriage in “the glass of fashion.” She conducted us, with the greatest politeness, through every part of the building, which, as well as the “Hôtel Dieu,” in point of order, neatness, and arrangement, seems singularly adapted to the comfort and recovery of the unfortunate beings to whose reception they are consecrated. Their funds I understood to be small, and managed with strict economy. They receive a small sum annually from government, in addition to the revenue arising from their domain lands. There is no distinction in the admission of catholic or protestant; the hand of charity has spread a couch for each in his infirmities. Both houses have a small pharmacopœia in charge of a sister instructed in medicine. The several duties of tending the sick by night, cooking, &c. are distributed by rotation. Employment is thus equally secured to all, and the first evil of cankering thought effectually prevented. Good humour and contented cheerfulness seem to be no strangers to these “veiled votaresses;” seem! nay, perhaps are; for, without ascribing any miraculous effect to the devotion of a cloister, it is no unreasonable supposition, that in an establishment of