Chalice received him. His dress had nothing of the bizarre on this
occasion. He was in black-long coat, silk stockings, the collar of his
waistcoat faced with white, his neckerchief white and full, his enamelled
shoes adorned with silver buckles. His present repose and decorum
contrasted strangely with the fanciful display at his first introduction.
Madame Chalice approved instantly, for though the costume was, in itself,
an affectation, previous to the time by a generation, it was in the
picture, was sedately refined. She welcomed him in the salon where many
another distinguished man had been entertained--from Frontenac, and
Vaudreuil, down to Sir Guy Carleton. The Manor had belonged to her
husband's people seventy-five years before, and though, as a banker in
New York, Monsieur Chalice had become an American of the Americans, at
her request he had bought back from a kinsman the old place, unchanged,
furniture and all. Bringing the antique plate, china, and bric-a-brac,
made in France when Henri Quatre was king, she fared away to Quebec, set
the rude mansion in order, and was happy for a whole summer, as was her
husband, the best of fishermen and sportsmen. The Manor House stood on a
knoll, behind which, steppe on steppe, climbed the hills, till they ended
in Dalgrothe Mountain. Beyond the mountain were unexplored regions, hill
and valley floating into hill and valley, lost in a miasmic haze, ruddy,
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