Our Little Quebec CousinSaxe, Mary S. (Mary Sollace)
General
Our Little Quebec Cousin
Saxe, Mary S. (Mary Sollace)
Children -- Québec (Province) -- Juvenile literature
They also went to the Champlain market and to the Convent of the Good
Shepherd, where the nuns dress always in white, and never cease their
prayers day nor night; every six hours they change vigils, but always,
always, there are some of them there before the altar, and one each
side of the steps of the high altar.
Grandmother Tremblent took a great interest in this friendship, though
she did not always appear in person she directed many of the excursions
and answered all of Oisette's questions.
The very first day Oisette arrived she had asked about Richelieu, and
almost every day thereafter she had learned some new fact; she had a
good memory, and when she got back home she would remember to tell her
mother about the great boat by which she had traveled, and the picture,
life-sized, of the Cardinal in his red robes, who had been Minister of
State during the reign of King Louis XIV of France; in fact Grandma had
said he was the true founder of the city of Quebec, for in 1627 he had
revoked the Charter of De Caen, a Huguenot merchant, and had organized
a company of one hundred associates, himself the head. The colonists
were to be given lands and were to send all their furs to France and
France was to send food to them, so that they would not have to do much
farm work, but made fur peltries their sole industry. It was a niece of
the great Cardinal Richelieu who by her charity and her gifts founded
some of the early societies that existed in the city of Quebec.
On the last day of Oisette's stay with her grandmother, Helen Sage came
for tea in this quaint old house and admired Napoleon, the canary and
the fancy work. She was pleased, too, with the quaint old furniture; a
prie-dieu chair in Oisette's bedroom particularly took her fancy, the
seat of this chair was very low, not more than a foot from the ground,
and when lifted up revealed a little shelf for devotional books, and a
devout person could kneel on this seat, facing the back of the chair,
and the top of the chair back was made flat and wide to hold the open
book.
In the dining-room was a beautiful mahogany sideboard. "Oh, please,
has it a history?" asked Helen. "It is very ancient, my child," Madame
answered. "In fact it was for years stored in my grandfather's barn
under some hay, left there by an English officer who was recalled home.
He told my people that some day he would come for it, but he never did,
and at last the old barn was to be torn down, so my father gave the
furniture to me."
There was also a glass cupboard, and desk, but all that Madame was
inclined to say about them was that they were ancient--very ancient.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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