bully, dividing his time between field sports, intem-
perance, and intrigues with the daughters of the
censitors on his father's seigniory; or in yet lower
illicit amours with the peasant girls of the manorial
village; varied by occasional journeys, made more
for debauchery than business, to the city of Montreal.
The second scion of the house, Pierre, was a good-
enough looking, and not ill-disposed youth; whom
his father, as if willing to offer up his choicest lamb
for the sins of the family fold, had intended for the
church. But the former had far other intentions
towards the fair than absolving them from their
peccadilloes, and entertained other ideas of foreign
travel than that of going on distant Indian missions;
whilst the youngest brother, Alphonse, was an
unbroken colt and madcap, articled to one of the
principal legal firms in the city. Although in years
he was but ancle deep, he was already in potations
full five fathoms; a worthy graduate of the licen-
tiousness of the town, and boon companion of the
dissolute Narcisse; whom, in a giddy moment he
had made acquainted with the family matrimonial
design on young Montigny. Narcisse, in his turn,
had a domestic story, that instinct, revenge, and a
mother's command impelled him to relate, and which
he told to the rollicking, but now attentive Alphonse,
with a wicked glee, raised by the prospect of mis-
chief. A discovery had been made by his brooding
and despised parent. Chance had thrown in her
way an opportunity for which she had watched for
years. Mona Macdonald had visited the advocate at
his dwelling, and her presence had stirred not only
the womanly curiosity of the lynx-eyed Babet Blais,

[[66]]

p065 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p066w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p067

v?