dition. But for the interest left them
by the French, these tiny islands have scarcely any associations, and
must be enjoyed for their beauty alone. There is indeed about them a
faint light of legend concerning the Canadian rebellion of 1837, for
several patriots are said to have taken refuge amidst their lovely
multitude; but this episode of modern history is difficult for the
imagination to manage, and somehow one does not take sentimentally even
to that daughter of a lurking patriot, who long baffled her father's
pursuers by rowing him from one island to another, and supplying him
with food by night.

Either the reluctance is from the natural desire that so recent a
heroine should be founded on fact, or it is mere perverseness. Perhaps
I ought to say; in justice to her, that it was one of her own sex who
refused to be interested in her, and forbade Basil to care for her. When
he had read of her exploit from the guide-book, Isabel asked him if he
had noticed that handsome girl in the blue and white striped Garibaldi
and Swiss hat, who had come aboard at Kingston. She pointed her out,
and courageously made him admire her beauty, which was of the most
bewitching Canadian type. The young girl was redeemed by her New World
birth from the English heaviness; a more delicate bloom lighted her
cheeks; a softer grace dwelt in her movement; yet she was round and
full, and she was in the perfect flower of youth. She was not so
ethereal in her loveliness as an American girl, but she was not so
nervous and had none of the painful fragility of the latter. Her
expression was just a little vacant, it must be owned; but so far as she
went she was faultless. She looked like the most tractable of daughters,
and as if she would be the most obedient of wives. She had a blameless
taste in dress, Isabel declared; her costume of blue and white striped
Garibaldi and Swiss hat (set upon heavy masses of dark brown hair) being
completed by a black silk skirt. "And you can see," she added, "that
it's an old skirt made over, and that she's dressed as cheaply as she
is prettily." This surprised Basil, who had imputed the young lady's
personal sumptuousness to her dress, and had thought it enormously
rich. When she got off with her chaperone at one of the poorest-looking
country landings, she left them in hopeless conjecture about her. Was
she visiting there, or was the interior of Canada full of such stylish
and exquisite creatures? Where did she g