The girl gazing forth from the narrow window was turning over in her mind the things that she had heard.  Her fair face was grave, yet it was bright, too, and as she threw out her hand towards the vista of the great river rolling its mighty volume of water towards the sea, she suddenly exclaimed: 

“And what if they do come? what if they do conquer?  Have we not deserved it? have we not brought ruin upon our own heads by the wickedness and cruelty we have made our allies?  And if England’s flag should one day wave over the fortress of Quebec, as it now does over that of Louisbourg, what is that to me?  Have I not English—­or Scotch—­blood in my veins?  Am I not as much English as French?  I sometimes think that, had I my choice, England would be the country where I should best love to dwell.  It is the land of freedom—­all say that, even my good uncle, who knows so well.  I love freedom; I love what is noble and great.  Sometimes I feel in my heart that England will be the greatest country of the world.”

Her eyes glowed; she stretched forth her hands in a speaking gesture.  The waters of the great river seemed to flash back an answer.  Cooped up within frowning walls, amid the buildings of the fortress and upper town, Corinne felt sometimes like a bird in a prison cage; and yet the life fascinated her, with its constant excitements, its military environment, its atmosphere of coming danger.  She did not want to leave Quebec till the struggle between the nations had been fought out.  And yet she scarcely knew which side she wished to see win.  French though her training had been of late years, yet her childhood had been spent in the stormy north, amid an English-speaking people.  She had seen much that disgusted and saddened her here amongst the French of Canada.  She despised the aged libertine who still sat upon the French throne with all the scorn and disgust of an ardent nature full of noble impulses.

“I hate to call myself his subject!” she had been known to say.  “I will be free to choose to which nation I will belong.  I have the right to call myself English if I choose.”

Not that Corinne very often gave way to such open demonstrations of her national independence, It was to her aunt, Madame Drucour, with whom she was now making a home, that she indulged these little rhapsodies, secure of a certain amount of indulgence and even sympathy from that lady, who had reason to think and speak well of English gallantry and chivalry.

Madame Drucour occupied a small house wedged in amongst the numerous strongly-built houses and ecclesiastical buildings of the upper town of Quebec.  The house had been deserted by its original occupants upon the first news of the fall of Louisbourg.  Many of the inhabitants of Quebec had taken fright at that, and had sailed for France; and Madame Drucour had been placed here by her husband, who himself was wanted in other quarters to repel English advances.  The lady had been glad to summon to her side her niece Corinne, who, since the state of the country had become so disturbed, had been placed by her father and uncle in the Convent of the Ursulines, under the charge of the good nuns there.