French and English: A Story of the Struggle in America

by Evelyn Everett-Green

"Yes; and I think that my home will be here when my duties to my friend are done. But first I must return to his home and his mother, and give to them there his last loving messages, and those things he wished them to possess of his. Indeed, his body is to be taken back, embalmed; the officers have decided upon that. I must see his mother and Miss Lowther again; then I think I shall return to these Western shores once again, and make my home upon Canadian soil."

"Tell me more about Mrs. Wolfe and Miss Lowther," said Corinne, with keen interest in her eyes and voice.

So Julian told her much of the events of those months which he spent in England by the side of Wolfe, and at last he drew forth the double miniature containing the likeness of the two who loved the hero so well, and gave it to Corinne to look at.

The tears came into her eyes as she gazed at the two faces. He saw the sparkle on her long lashes as she returned him the case, and he loved her for them.

"It is a beautiful face; both are beautiful faces," she said. "How sad for them--how very sad--that he should return to them no more! Do you think Miss Lowther will ever love again? Or will she go mourning all the days of her life for him whom she has lost?"

Julian shook his head doubtfully.

"I cannot tell; yet time is a great healer, and Wolfe himself sent her a message bidding her not mourn too long and deeply for him. She is still young, and the time they spent together was not very long. I trust and hope that comfort will come to her when her grief has abated and the wound has healed. Life would become too sorrowful a thing if death were able to make such lasting havoc of its hopes and happiness."

Corinne drew a long sigh. She had seen much of death and disaster those last months of her young life. It would indeed be too cruel if the hand of time held no healing balm in its clasp.

The next days were full of interest for Corinne. Julian took her and Colin under his special protection and care. Fritz was kept to the house and its vicinity by his lameness, which the march into the city had rather increased; and Humphrey was busy in a thousand ways. But Julian, though he had sundry duties to perform, had plenty of leisure on his hands, too; and he gave up a great portion of this leisure to taking Corinne and her brother a regular tour of the various ships, and of the camps where the English had settled themselves whilst attacking Quebec--showing them exactly how the Heights of Abraham had been scaled, how the plain had been reached and the battle set in array there; and the spot where Wolfe had fallen, and that where he had died.

The bright-faced girl, with her French name and English sympathies, was feted and welcomed everywhere. Brigadier Townshend gave a dinner to some of the residents, and the Abbe and Madame Drucour, with their nephew and niece, were invited. Corinne's health was proposed and drunk amid acclamation, greatly to her own astonishment; and wherever she went she met with nothing but kindness and respect.