Then let it cool, and eat it! And then, Jules, as the
Reverend Father de Berey always says after grace over an Easter pie,
'Dominus vobiscum!'"
CHAPTER XXI.
SIC ITUR AD ASTRA.
The old hall of Belmont had been decorated for many a feast since
the times of its founder, the Intendant Talon; but it had never
contained a nobler company of fair women and brave men, the pick and
choice of their race, than to-day met round the hospitable and
splendid table of the Bourgeois Philibert in honor of the fete of
his gallant son.
Dinner was duly and decorously despatched. The social fashion of
New France was not for the ladies to withdraw when the wine followed
the feast, but to remain seated with the gentlemen, purifying the
conversation, and by their presence restraining the coarseness which
was the almost universal vice of the age.
A troop of nimble servitors carried off the carved dishes and
fragments of the splended patisseries of Maitre Guillot, in such a
state of demolition as satisfied the critical eye of the chief cook
that the efforts of his genius had been very successful.
Pages:
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418