on a prosperous career, and that Charlottetown is soon to become
a place of great activity, no one who converses with the natives can
doubt; and I think that even now no traveler will regret spending an
hour or two there; but it is necessary to say that the rosy inducements
to tourists to spend the summer there exist only in the guide-books.

We congratulated ourselves that we should at least have a night of
delightful sleep on the steamboat in the quiet of this secluded harbor.
But it was wisely ordered otherwise, to the end that we should improve
our time by an interesting study of human nature. Towards midnight, when
the occupants of all the state-rooms were supposed to be in profound
slumber, there was an invasion of the small cabin by a large and
loquacious family, who had been making an excursion on the island
railway. This family might remind an antiquated novel-reader of the
delightful Brangtons in "Evelina;" they had all the vivacity of the
pleasant cousins of the heroine of that story, and the same generosity
towards the public in regard to their family affairs. Before they had
been in the cabin an hour, we felt as if we knew every one of them.
There was a great squabble as to where and how they should sleep; and
when this was over, the revelations of the nature of their beds and
their peculiar habits of sleep continued to pierce the thin deal
partitions of the adjoining state-rooms. When all the possible
trivialities of vacant minds seemed to have been exhausted, there
followed a half-hour of "Goodnight, pa; good-night, ma;" "Goodnight,
pet;" and "Are you asleep, ma?" "No." "Are you asleep, pa?" "No; go to
sleep, pet." "I'm going. Good-night, pa; good-night, ma." "Goodnight,
pet." "This bed is too short." "Why don't you take the other?" "I'm all
fixed now." "Well, go to sleep; good-night." "Good-night, ma; goodnight,
pa,"--no answer. "Good-night,pa." "Goodnight, pet." "Ma, are you
asleep?" "Most." "This bed is all lumps; I wish I'd gone downstairs."
"Well, pa will get up." "Pa, are you asleep?" "Yes." "It's better now;
good-night, pa." "Goodnight, pet." "Good-night, ma." "Good-night, pet."
And so on in an exasperating repetition, until every passenger on the
boat must have been thoroughly informed of the manner in which this
interesting family habitually settled itself to repose.

Half an hour passes with only a languid exchange of family feeling, and
then: "Pa?" "Well, pet." "Don't call us in the morning; we