"Is that all of it there is now, grandma?" asked Elsie.
"Oh, no, my child! there is a city with a very strong fortress; there are colleges and churches; there is a building yard for vessels, where thirty or forty are built every year. Quebec has a very fine harbor, where many vessels can ride at anchor at the same time, and I have read that from fourteen hundred to two thousand come in every year from the ocean."
"Just to ride there, grandma?" asked Neddie, with grave earnestness. Then he wondered why grandma smiled at his query and everybody else laughed.
"No, sonnie," Mrs. Travilla replied, "but to trade. They bring goods to the people—silk, cotton, woolen; salt too, coal, and hardware. And they carry away what the folks in Canada have to sell, which is mostly timber."
"Did you say French folks live there, grandma?" asked Elsie.
"Yes; it was built by the French in the first place, but taken from them by the English in 1759."
"That was before our Revolution, wasn't it, grandma?"
"Yes; about sixteen years earlier."
"Please tell about it, grandma."