that morning. My driver explained
afterwards, that persons visiting the field were commonly so much
pleased with the captain's eloquence, that they kept the noble old
soldier in a brandy and-water rapture throughout the season, thereby
greatly refreshing his memory, and making the battle bloodier 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 hydraulic 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 t