Our Little Quebec CousinSaxe, Mary S. (Mary Sollace)
General
Our Little Quebec Cousin
Saxe, Mary S. (Mary Sollace)
Children -- Québec (Province) -- Juvenile literature
Goodness knows she was hungry when Madame Tremblent's house, situated
on the Grand Alley, was reached; she found that her grandmother, whom
she had not seen for several years, had grown smaller and thinner and
wore a black lace cap on her head, but that her eyes were as bright as
ever, and she had such a happy contented smile of welcome for her son
and her granddaughter, whom she kissed on both cheeks.
During the morning Oisette unpacked her belongings, and became
accustomed to the tall, narrow, stone house, with its long flights
of narrow stairs, its tall, narrow windows; a house where one had
breakfast in the basement, with windows on the street level, and
received one's visitors in a salon upstairs, a very grand room with
lofty ceilings and heavy cut glass chandeliers that tinkled when any
one walked heavily in the room above.
To go to her bedroom she had to climb another long flight of narrow
stairs. But here, again, the view was so wonderful that she forgot to
be homesick.
Her grandmother owned a marvelous big black cat with yellow eyes that
answered to the name of Napoleon, and also a dog, another Carleau by
the way, old and feeble now, sleeping most of his time away, but he
managed to wag his tail slowly when he heard little Oisette Mary's
voice.
In the sitting-room, which was bright with red curtains, flowered walls
and much fancy work of colored worsteds, there was a very yellow canary
in a very bright clean cage.
This bird had a very shrill little note that made one's ears flutter,
and he sang from the time the church bell rang for early mass until
nightfall. Sometimes when he became too shrill, Madame would take
off her black apron and hang it over the top of the cage and bid the
warbler to "marche a couché."
Oisette was very much amused at this camouflage. "It is the daylight
saving bill for the pauvre oiseau," she explained to her father.
Monsieur Tremblent had much business to attend to on this trip, but
he managed to have Oisette go with him to the Falls of Montmorency,
where the river of that name takes a leap of two hundred and fifty
feet and joins the St. Lawrence; and to visit the Duke of Kent's
house. The Duke of Kent was the father of Queen Victoria of England,
and about the house are growing the most lovely old-fashioned flowers.
Then, one Sunday afternoon, they took a long ride on the trolley and
visited the shrine of St. Anne de Beaupré. Even before they left the
tram car, Oisette espied the stone basilica on the top of a very pretty
green hill, and as they entered the village the chimes were ringing a
processional and a number of cripples thronged through the pillared
vestibule. This shrine is world famous and sufferers have come one
thousand miles sometimes, to wait, like those of old in Bible days, for
the moving of the waters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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