dier and bloodier as the season advanced and the
number of visitors increased. There my dear," he suddenly broke off, as
they came in sight of a slender stream of water that escaped from the
brow of a cliff on the American side below the Falls, and spun itself
into a gauze of silvery mist, "that's the Bridal Veil; and I suppose you
think the stream, which is making such a fine display, yonder, is some
idle brooklet, ending a long course of error and worthlessness by that
spectacular plunge. It's nothing of the kind; it's an honest hydraulio
canal, of the most straightforward character, a poor but respectable
mill-race which has devoted itself strictly to business, and has turned
mill-wheels instead of fooling round water-lilies. It can afford that
ultimate finery. What you behold in the Bridal Veil, my love, is the
apotheosis of industry."

"What I can't help thinking of," said Isabel, who had not paid the
smallest attention to the Bridal Veil, or anything about it, "is the
awfulness of stepping off these places in the night-time." She referred
to the road which, next the precipice, is unguarded by any sort of
parapet. In Europe a strong wall would secure it, but we manage things
differently on our continent, and carriages go running over the brink
from time to time.

"If your thoughts have that direction," answered her husband, "we had
better go back to the hotel, and leave the Whirlpool for to-morrow
morning. It's late for it to-day, at any rate." He had treated Isabel
since the adventure on the Three Sisters with a superiority which he felt
himself to be very odious, but which he could not disuse.

"I'm not afraid," she sighed, "but in the words of the retreating
soldier, I--I'm awfully demoralized;" and added, "You know we must
reserve some of the vital forces for shopping this evening."

Part of their business also was to buy the tickets for their return to

Boston by way of Montreal and Quebec, and it was part of their pleasure
to get these of the heartiest imaginable ticket-agent. He was a colonel
or at least a major, and he made a polite feint of calling Basil by some
military title. He commended the trip they were about to make as the most
magnificent and beautiful on the whole continent, and he commended them
for intending to make it. He said that was Mrs. General Bowdur of
Philadelphia who just went out; did they know her? Somehow, the titles
affected Basil as of older date than the late war, and as