A Soft
Twilight Had Followed The Day, And There Was Just Enough Obscurity To Hide
From A Willing Eye The
Northern and New World facts of the scene, and to
leave in more romantic relief the citadel dark against the
Mellow evening,
and the people gossiping from window to window across the narrow streets
of the Lower Town. The Terrace itself was densely thronged, and there was
a constant coming and going of the promenaders, and each formally paced
back and forth upon the planking for a certain time, and then went quietly
home, giving place to new arrivals. They were nearly all French, and they
were not generally, it seemed, of the first fashion, but rather of
middling condition in life; the English being represented only by a few
young fellows, and now and then a red-faced old gentleman with an Indian
scarf trailing from his hat. There were some fair American costumes and
faces in the crowd, but it was essentially Quebecian. The young girls,
walking in pairs, or with their lovers, had the true touch of provincial
unstylishness, the young men had the ineffectual excess of the second-rate
Latin dandy, the elder the rude inelegance of a bourgeoisie in them; but
a few better-figured avocats or notaires (their profession was as
unmistakable as if they carried their well-polished door-plates upon their
breasts), walked and gravely talked with each other. The non-American
character of the scene was not less vividly marked in the fact, that each
person dressed according to his own taste, and frankly indulged private
shapes and colours.
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