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THE YOUNG SEIGNEUR.
THE MANOIR OF DORMILLI?RE.
In the year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Seventy odd, about six years after the confederation of the Provinces into the Dominion of Canada, an Ontarian went down into Quebec,--an event then almost as rare as a Quebecker entering Ontario.
"It's a queer old Province, and romantic to me," said the Montrealer with whom old Mr. Chrysler fell in on the steamer descending to Sorel, and who had been giving him the names of the villages they passed in the broad and verdant panorama of the shores of the St. Lawrence.
"What is that?" exclaimed the Ontarian, suddenly, lifting his hand, his eyes brightening with an interest unwonted for a man beyond middle age.
The steamer was passing close to the shore, making for a pier some distance ahead; and, surmounting the high bank, a majestic scene arose, facing them like an apparition. It was a grey Tudor mansion of weather-stained stone, with churchy pinnacles, a strange-looking bright tin roof, and, towering around the sides and back of its grounds a lofty walk of pine trees, marshalled in dark, square, overshadowing array, out of which, as if surrounded by a guard of powerful forest spirits, the mansion looked forth like a resuscitated Elizabethan reality. Its mien seemed to say: "I am not of yesterday, and shall pass tranquilly on into the centuries to come: old traditions cluster quietly about my gables; and rest is here."
"That is the Manoir of Dormilli?re," replied the Montrealer, as the steamer, whose paddles had stopped their roar, glided silently by.
Impressive was the Manoir, with its cool shades and air of erect lordliness, its solemn grey walls and pinnacled gables, the beautiful depressed arch of its front door; and its dream-like foreground of river mirroring its majestic guard of pines.
"I knew," said Chrysler, "that you had your seigniories in Quebec, and some sort of a feudal history, far back, but I never dreamed of such seats."
"Who lives in this one?"
"The Havilands. An English name but considered French;--grandfather an officer, an English captain, who married the heiress of the old D'Argentenayes, of this place."
"Mr. Haviland is the name of the person I am going to visit."
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