The sad foreboding of colonists like La Corne St. Luc did not prevent the desperate struggle that was made for the preservation of French dominion in the next war. Like brave and loyal men, they did their duty to God and their country, preferring death and ruin in a lost cause to surrendering the flag which was the symbol of their native land. The spirit, if not the words, of the old English loyalist was in them: “For loyalty is still the same, Whether it win or lose the game; True as the dial to the sun, Although it be not shone upon.” New France, after gathering a harvest of glory such as America had never seen reaped before, fell at last, through the neglect of her mother country. But she dragged down the nation in her fall, and France would now give the apple of her eye for the recovery, never to be, of “the acres of snow” which La Pompadour so scornfully abandoned to the English. These considerations lay in the lap of the future, however; they troubled not the present time and company. The glasses were again replenished with wine or watered, as the case might be, for the Count de la Galissonière and Herr Kalm kept Horatian time and measure, drinking only three cups to the Graces, while La Corne St. Luc and Rigaud de Vaudreuil drank nine full cups to the Muses, fearing not the enemy that steals away men's brains. Their heads were helmeted with triple brass, and impenetrable to the heaviest blows of the thyrsus of Bacchus. They drank with impunity, as if garlanded with parsley, and while commending the Bishop, who would drink naught save pure water, they rallied gaily Claude Beauharnais, who would not drink at all. In the midst of a cheerful concert of merriment, the door of the cabinet opened, and the servant in waiting announced the entrance of Colonel Philibert. All rose to welcome him. Pierre looked anxious and somewhat discomposed, but the warm grasp of the hands of so many true friends made him glad for the moment. “Why, Pierre!” exclaimed the Count, “I hope no ill wind has blown you to the city so unexpectedly! You are heartily welcome, however, and we will call every wind good that blows our friends back to us again.” “It is a cursed wind that blows me back to-day,” replied Philibert, sitting down with an air of disquiet. “Why, what is the matter, Pierre?” asked the Count. “My honored Lady de Tilly and her lovely niece, are they well?” “Well, your Excellency, but sorely troubled. The devil has tempted Le Gardeur again, and he has fallen. He is back to the city, wild as a savage and beyond all control.” “Good God! it will break his sister's heart,” said the Governor, sympathizingly. “That girl would give her life for her brother. I feel for her; I feel for you, too, Pierre.” Philibert felt the tight clasp of the Governor's hand as he said this. He understood well its meaning. “And not less do I pity the unhappy youth who is the cause of such grief to his friends,” continued he.