brilliancy of contrast against the age-darkened stone walls, it has a charm that is quite its own. One of these old houses of St. Louis street sets well back from the sidewalk in a seeming riotous waste of front lawn, and bears upon its face a tablet denoting it as the one-time home of the Duke of Kent. This distinguished gentleman lived in Quebec many years before he became father of Queen Victoria. In fact, Quebec remembers him as a rather gay young blade of a fellow who had innumerable mild affairs with the fascinating French-Canadian girls of the town. These things have almost become traditions among the older folk of the place. Those girls of Quebec town seem always to have held keen attractions for young blades from afar. When you turn down Mountain Hill and pass the General Post Office with its quaint Golden Dog set in the _façade_, they will not only make you re-read that fascinating romance of the old Quebec, but they will tell you that years after the Philiberts and the Repentignys were gone and the English were in full enjoyment of their rare American prize, that same old inn, upon whose front the gnawing dog was so securely set, was run by one Sergeant Miles Prentice, whose pretty niece, Miss Simpson, so captivated Captain Horatio Nelson of His Majesty's Ship _Albemarle_ that it became necessary for his friends to spirit away the future hero of Trafalgar to prevent him from marrying her. Beyond the old house of the Duke of Kent, St. Louis street is a narrow path lined by severe little Canadian homes all the way to the city gate. Many of these houses are fairly steeped in tradition. One tiny fellow within which the ancient profession of the barber still works is the house wherein Montcalm died. And to another, Benedict Arnold was taken in that ill-starred American attack upon Quebec. A third was a gift two centuries ago by the Intendant Bigot to the favored woman of his acquaintance. Romance does creep up and down the little steps of these little houses. They change hardly at all with the changing of the years. [Illustration: Lower Town, Quebec--from the Terrace] Here among them are the ruins of an old theater--its solid-stone façade still holding high above the narrow run of pavement. It has been swept within by fire--the evil enemy that has fallen upon Quebec again and again and far more devastatingly than even the cannon that have bombarded her from unfriendly hands. "Are they going to rebuild?" you may inquire, as you look at the stolid shell of the old theater. "Bless you, no," exclaims your guide. "The Music Hall was burned more than a dozen years ago. Quebec does not rebuild."