XXXVII. My own affairs.--A Drive and how it came off.--Varying Moods.--The Excited, the Gloomy, and the Gentlemanly.--Straying about Montmorency.--Revisiting a memorable Scene.--Effect of said Scene.--A Mute Appeal and an Appeal in Words.--Result of the Appeals.--"Will You Turn Away?"--Grand Result.--Climax.--Finale.--A General Understanding all round, and a Universal Explanation of Numerous Puzzles. XXXVIII. Grand Conclusion.--Wedding-rings and Ball-rings.--St. Malachi's. --Old Fletcher in his glory.--No Humbug this time.--Messages sent everywhere.--All the town Agog.--Quebec on the Rampage.--St. Malachi's Crammed.--Galleries Crowded.--White Favors Everywhere.--The Widow happy with the Chaplain.--The Double Wedding.--First couple--JACK AND LOUIE! --Second ditto--MACRORIE AND MARION!--Colonel Berton and O'Halloran giving away the brides.--Strange Association of the British Officer and the Fenian.--Jack and Macrorie, Louie and Marion.--Brides and Bridegrooms.--Epithalamicm.--Wedding in high life.--Six Officiating Clergymen.--All the elite of Quebec take part.--All the Clergy, all the Military, and Everybody who amounts to any thing.--The Band of the Bobtails Discourse Sweet Music, and all that sort of thing, You Know. THE LADY OF THE ICE. CHAPTER I. CONSISTING MERELY OF INTRODUCTORY MATTER. This is a story of Quebec. Quebec is a wonderful city. I am given to understand that the ridge on which the city is built is Laurentian; and the river that flows past it is the same. On this (not the river, you know) are strata of schist, shale, old red sand-stone, trap, granite, clay, and mud. The upper stratum is ligneous, and is found to be very convenient for pavements. It must not be supposed from this introduction that I am a geologist. I am not. I am a lieutenant in her Majesty's 129th Bobtails. The Bobtails are a gay and gallant set, and I have reason to know that we are well remembered in every place we have been quartered.