r plunged into the leaping waves. From
rock to rock she swerved and sank; on the last ledge she scraped with a
deadly touch that went to the heart.

Then the danger was passed, and the noble city of Montreal was in full
sight, lying at the foot of her dark green mountain, and lifting her
many spires into the rosy twilight air: massive and grand showed the
sister towers of the French cathedral.

Basil had hoped to approach this famous city with just associations. He
had meant to conjure up for Isabel's sake some reflex, however faint, of
that beautiful picture Mr. Parkman has painted of Maisonneuve founding
and consecrating Montreal. He flushed with the recollection of the
historian's phrase; but in that moment there came forth from the cabin
a pretty young person who gave every token of being a pretty young
actress, even to the duenna-like, elderly female companion, to be
detected in the remote background of every young actress. She had
flirted audaciously during the day with some young Englishmen and
Canadians of her acquaintance, and after passing the La Chine Rapids she
had taken the hearts of all the men by springing suddenly to her feet,
apostrophizing the tumult with a charming attitude, and warbling a
delicious bit of song. Now as they drew near the city the Victoria
Bridge stretched its long tube athwart the river, and looked so low
because of its great length that it seemed to bar the steamer's passage.

"I wonder," said one of the actress's adorers, a Canadian, whose face
was exactly that of the beaver on the escutcheon of his native province,
and whose heavy gallantries she had constantly received with a gay,
impertinent nonchalance,--"I wonder if we can be going right under that
bridge?"

"No, sir!" answered the pretty young actress with shocking promptness,
"we're going right over it!"

"'Three groans and a guggle,
And an awful struggle,
And over we go!'"

At this witless, sweet impudence the Canadian looked very sheepish--for
a beaver; and all the other people laughed; but the noble historical
shades of Basil's thought vanished in wounded dignity beyond recall, and
left him feeling rather ashamed,--for he had laughed too.

VIII. THE SENTIMENT OF MONTREAL.

The feeling of foreign travel for which our tourists had striven
throughout their journey, and which they had known in some degree at
Kingston and all the way down the river, was intensified from the first
mo