es were repeated over and over again,
the passengers and crew of each boat laughing and chaffing each other as
they passed and repassed in the slow pounding race. It had happened more
than once that these first steamers had been frozen in after reaching
the Straits, and had been obliged to spend several days in company fast
bound in the ice. Then the passengers and crews visited each other,
climbing down the sides of the steamers and walking across. At that
early season the passengers were seldom pleasure-travellers, and
therefore they endured the delay philosophically. It is only the real
pleasure-traveller who has not one hour to spare.

The steamers Anne now watched were the first from below. The lower lakes
were clear; it was only this northern Strait that still held the ice
together, and kept the fleets at bay on the east and on the west.
White-winged vessels, pioneers of the summer squadron, waited without
while the propellers turned their knife-bladed bows into the ice, and
cut a pathway through. Then word went down that the Straits were open,
all the freshwater fleet set sail, the lights were lit again in the
light-houses, and the fishing stations and lonely little wood docks came
to life.

"How delightful it is!" said Anne, aloud.

There are times when a person, although alone, does utter a sentence or
two, that is, thinks aloud; but such times are rare. And such sentences,
also, are short--exclamations. The long soliloquies of the stage, so
convenient in the elucidation of plot, do not occur in real life, where
we are left to guess at our neighbor's motives, untaught by so much as a
syllable. How fortunate for Dora's chances of happiness could she but
overhear that Alonzo thinks her a sweet, bigoted little fool, but wants
that very influence to keep him straight, nothing less than the intense
convictions of a limited intelligence and small experience in life being
of any use in sweeping him over with a rush by means of his feelings
alone, which is what he is hoping for. Having worn out all the pleasure
there is to be had in this world, he has now a mind to try for the next.

What an escape for young Conrad to learn from Honoria's own passionate
soliloquy that she is marrying him from bitterest rage against Manuel,
and that those tones and looks that have made him happy are second-hand
wares, which she flings from her voice and eyes with desperate scorn!
Still, we must believe that Nature knows what she is a