DAUGHTER OF THE GODS.

"Soft was the breath of balmy spring
In that fair month of May"

--GEO MURRAY.


Time flew brightly for some days, as an early spring, having poured its
thousand rivulets out of the melting snows, began to dry the soil and
instil into the willows and birches the essences that soon cover them
with refreshing green, and earth suddenly teems with leafing and flying
life, with odor of buds and laughing variety of shade and sun.

I, as is my nature, was deeply under the spell.

"Rossignolet du bois joli,
Emporte-moi-t-une lettre!"

Alexandra was coming home!

St. Helen's Island, named affectionately by Champlain after his fair
young wife, Hélène, stretches its half-mile of park along the middle of
the River opposite the city of Montreal. It is at all times a graceful
sight; in summer by the refreshing shade of its deep groves beheld from
the dusty city; in winter by the contrast of its flowing purple crest of
trees with the flat white expanse of ice-covered river. The lower end,
towards which the outlines of its double hill tend, is varied by the
walls and flagstaffs of a military establishment, comprising some grey
barracks, a row of officers' quarters, and a block-house, higher on the