Down again to the train—how familiar and home-like the old “Kamloops” looks, already! “All aboard!” Hurrah! Off we go again! Singing once more—this time the “Soldier’s Farewell”; Tom striking it a third too high, and going all to pieces on the second “Farewell”—on and on and on, faster and faster and faster, up the beautiful Passumpsic Valley, along the shores of Memphremagog.
“Look!” cries Bess. “There’s a shower on the hills!”
The clouds hang, black and sullen, along the mountain-tops. Dash! comes the rain in long exclamation points all over the window-panes. A glittering flash of lightning, trees bowing in the wind, rain pouring in torrents.
Suddenly a brilliant light strikes again through the windows, resting on Pet’s golden hair—not lightning this time, but the blessed sunshine, in long, slanting rays from the west. Even the boys catch their breath with delight and something like awe as they see the clouds rolling away over the mountains.
At about sunset, the principal “conductor” of the Excursion, whom we will call Mr. Houghton—a jolly, good-natured gentleman, who won first the confidence and then the regard of his hundred charges, at the very outset—came through the car announcing that at about half-past eight they would be in Montreal, where the train would wait for them forty-eight hours, the next day being Sunday.
In due time the cars thundered over the long steel bridge between Caughnawaga and Lachine, the lights of Montreal twinkled out of the darkness, and our friends were soon on their way to the Windsor, where they were to spend the next two days.
Sunday was as fair as the most exacting traveler could wish. The large party scattered during the forenoon, most of them going to church. Randolph and Tom, with the girls, left the hotel early and walked for a mile or more through the streets of the city.
There were many French inhabitants, as the shop signs showed. In a little common, they saw the sign, “N’allez pas sur le gazon”—a polite way of putting our familiar “Keep off the grass.” The names of the streets carried them back to old times, when the whole province was held by France—“Ste. Monique,” “Ste. Genevieve,” etc. Funny little milk carts went bobbing along over the rough pavements, and funny little babies toddled along the uneven board sidewalks.
Their walk soon brought them to a lofty granite building with two square towers—the cathedral of Notre Dame.