For the first ten years, my residence in the woods of Douro, my infant
family, and last, not least, among the list of objections, that great
want,--the want of money,--placed insuperable difficulties in the way
of my ever accomplishing this cherished wish of my heart.

The hope, resigned for the present, was always indulged as a bright
future--a pleasant day-dream--an event which at some unknown period,
when happier days should dawn upon us, might take place; but which just
now was entirely out of the question.

When the children were very importunate for a new book or toy, and I had
not the means of gratifying them, I used to silence them by saying that
I would buy that and many other nice things for them when "our money
cart came home."

During the next ten years, this all-important and anxiously anticipated
vehicle did not arrive. The children did not get their toys, and my
journey to Niagara was still postponed to an indefinite period.

Like a true daughter of romance, I could not banish from my mind
the glorious ideal I had formed of this wonder of the world; but
still continued to speculate about the mighty cataract, that sublime
"thunder of waters," whose very name from childhood had been
music to my ears.

Ah, Hope! what would life be, stripped of thy encouraging smiles, that
teach us to look behind the dark clouds of to-day for the golden beams
that are to gild the morrow. To those who have faith in thy promises,
the most extravagant fictions are possible; and the unreal becomes
material and tangible. The artist who placed thee upon the rock with