sat tranquilly expectant of the joys which its departure should bring,
and tolerantly patient of its delay; for if all the Saguenay had not
been in promise, she would have thought it the greatest happiness just
to have that prospect of the St. Lawrence and Quebec. The sun shone with
a warm yellow light on the Upper Town, with its girdle of gray wall, and
on the red flag that drowsed above the citadel, and was a friendly
lustre on the tinned roofs of the Lower Town; while away off to the
south and east and west wandered the purple hills and the farmlit plains
in such dewy shadow and effulgence as would have been enough to make the
heaviest heart glad. Near at hand the river was busy with every kind of
craft, and in the distance was mysterious with silvery vapors; little
breaths of haze, like an ethereal colorless flame, exhaled from its
surface, and it all glowed with a lovely inner radiance. In the middle
distance a black ship was heaving anchor and setting sail, and the voice
of the seamen came soft and sad and yet wildly hopeful to the dreamy ear
of the young girl, whose soul at once went round the world before the
ship, and then made haste back again to the promenade of the Saguenay
boat. She sat leaning forward a little with her hands fallen into her
lap, letting her unmastered thoughts play as they would in memories and
hopes around the consciousness that she was the happiest girl in the
world, and blest beyond desire or desert. To have left home as she had
done, equipped for a single day at Niagara, and then to have come
adventurously on, by grace of her cousin's wardrobe, as it were, to
Montreal and Quebec; to be now going up the Saguenay, and finally to be
destined to return home by way of Boston and New York;--this was more
than any one human being had a right to; and, as she had written home to
the girls, she felt that her privileges ought to be divided up among all
the people of Eriecreek. She was very grateful to Colonel Ellison and
Fanny for affording her these advantages; but they being now out of
sight in pursuit of state-rooms, she was not thinking of them in