chance. Nobody was more astonished than herself,
but at any rate it was a success, and success is always agreeable.
Before she had time to peril her new reputation by a second trial, the
boat-bell rung to announce dinner, and everybody returned to the place
which had been chosen for the meal.

All picnics have a strong family likeness: even in Canada there is
nothing new in them. Mr. Percy hated picnics, and found this one neither
more nor less stupid than usual. The slight fillip which Lucia had
innocently given to his bored faculties, soon subsided. He sat near her
at dinner, and thought her stupid; he noticed too that she wore her hat
badly, and had a very countrified air, "of course."

The boat returned up the river much more slowly than it had gone down.
The elder people were tired, and the younger ones began to think of the
evening, and to reserve themselves for it. The band played at intervals,
with long pauses, as if the musicians were tired too. Mrs. Bellairs had
resumed her chair on deck, but some of the elder ladies were gathered
round her; Bella and Lucia sat together in one corner. Dr. Morton, the
most desirable _parti_ in Cacouna, was literally, as well as
figuratively, at Bella's feet, and Maurice leaned on the railing beside
them. Mr. Percy was happier than he had been all day; he had been taken
possession of by a pretty young matron--an Englishwoman, who still
talked of "home," and they had found out some mutual acquaintance, of
whom she was eager to hear news. Yet he was not too much engrossed to
perceive the group opposite to him, or even to keep up a kind of
half-conscious surveillance over them. At the landing the party
dispersed, almost all to meet again in the evening at the unfinished
house, which had been appropriated for a ball-room. Mrs. Bellairs drove
her sister and Lucia home, leaving Mr. Bellairs and Mr. Percy to follow;
and when they arrived, the ladies had shut themselves up in their rooms,
to drink tea and rest before dressing.

At nine o'clock, while Mr. Percy was finishing his toilette, his host
knocked at the door. "Are you ready?" he asked. "Elise was anxious to
see the rooms before anybody arrived, so she and the girls are gone some
time ago with Maurice Leigh."

"Gone! Why, Bellairs, what hours _do_ people keep in Canada?"

"In Cacouna they keep reasonable ones, my good cousin; we begin to dance
at nine and finish soon after twelve. That accounts for the young people
being yo