habits, and their religion.  In the cities they are becoming hewers of wood and drawers of water.  I am inclined to think that the same will ultimately be their fate in the country.  Surely one may declare as a fact that a Roman Catholic population can never hold its ground against one that is Protestant.  I do not speak of numbers; for the Roman Catholics will increase and multiply, and stick by their religion, although their religion entails poverty and dependence, as they have done and still do in Ireland.  But in progress and wealth the Romanists have always gone to the wall when the two have been made to compete together.  And yet I love their religion.  There is something beautiful, and almost divine, in the faith and obedience of a true son of the Holy Mother.  I sometimes fancy that I would fain be a Roman Catholic—­if I could; as also I would often wish to be still a child—­if that were possible.

All this is on the way to the Falls of Montmorency.  These falls are placed exactly at the mouth of the little river of the same name, so that it may be said absolutely to fall into the St. Lawrence.  The people of the country, however, declare that the river into which the waters of the Montmorency fall is not the St. Lawrence, but the Charles.  Without a map I do not know that I can explain this.  The River Charles appears to, and in fact does, run into the St. Lawrence just below Quebec.  But the waters do not mix.  The thicker, browner stream of the lesser river still keeps the northeastern bank till it comes to the Island of Orleans, which lies in the river five or six miles below Quebec.  Here or hereabouts are the Falls of the Montmorency, and then the great river is divided for twenty-five miles by the Isle of Orleans.  It is said that the waters of the Charles and the St. Lawrence do not mix till they meet each other at the foot of this island.

I do not know that I am particularly happy at describing a waterfall, and what little capacity I may have in this way I would wish to keep for Niagara.  One thing I can say very positively about Montmorency, and one piece of advice I can give to those who visit the falls.  The place from which to see them is not the horrible little wooden temple which has been built immediately over them on that side which lies nearest to Quebec.  The stranger is put down at a gate through which a path leads to this temple, and at which a woman demands from him twenty-five cents for the privilege of entrance.  Let him by all means pay the twenty-five cents.  Why should he attempt to see the falls for nothing, seeing that this woman has a vested interest in the showing of them?  I declare that if I thought that I should hinder this woman from her perquisites by what I write, I would leave it unwritten, and let my readers pursue their course to the temple—­to their manifest injury.  But they will pay the twenty-five cents.  Then let them cross over the bridge, eschewing the temple, and wander round on the open