Very narrow,' echoed Robert. He noticed the slight shiver that ran
through the daughter's figure, as she leaned on her father's arm. His
handsome face looked down at her carelessly.

'Edith shudders,' said he; 'I suppose thinking that so wonderful an
escape ought to be remembered as more than a mere adventure.' To which
he received no answer, save an appealing look from her soft eyes. He
turned away with a short laugh.

'Well, at all events, it cured me of boating among the ice. Ugh! to be
sucked in and smothered under a floe would be frightful.'

Mr. Wynn wishing to say something that would prove he was not thinking
of the little aside-scene between father and daughter, asked if the St.
Lawrence was generally so full of ice in winter.

It was difficult to believe now in the balmy atmosphere of the Indian
summer, with a dreamy sunshine warming and gladdening all things,--the
very apotheosis of autumn,--that wintry blasts would howl along this
placid river, surging fierce ice-waves together, before two months
should pass.

'There's rarely a bridge quite across,' replied Captain Armytage;
'except in the north channel, above the isle of Orleans, where the tide
has less force than in the southern, because it is narrower; but in the
widest place the hummocks of ice are frequently crushed into heaps
fifteen or twenty feet high, which makes navigation uncomfortably
exciting.'

'I should think so,' rejoined Robert drily.

'Ah, you have yet to feel what a Canadian winter is like, my young
friend;' and Captain Armytage nodded in that mysterious manner which
is intended to impress a 'griffin' with the cheering conviction that
unknown horrors are before him.

'I wonder what is that tall church, whose roof glitters so intensely?'

'The cathedral, under its tin dome and spires. The metal is said to
hinder the lodging and help the thawing of the snow, which might
otherwise lie so heavy as to endanger the roof.'

'Oh, that is the reason!' ejaculated Robert, suddenly enlightened as to
the needs-be of all the surface glitter.

'Rather a pretty effect, eh? and absolutely unique, except in Canadian
cities. It suggests an infinitude of greenhouses reflecting sunbeams at
a variety of angles of incidence.'

'I presume this is the lower town, lying along the quays?' said Robert.

'Yes, like our Scottish Edinburgh, the old city, being built in
dangerous times, lies huddled close together under protection of its
guardian rock,' s