ing tracery of sun shadows and fluttering leaves, and giving
through the true Gothic arches of its myriad windows glorious views of
the lake that lay like an enchanted sea before us! And whoever dined
more regally, more divinely, even, though upon nectar and ambrosia, than
our merry-makers as they sat at their well-spread board, with such
glowing, heaven-tinted pictures before their eyes, such balmy airs
floating about their happy heads, and such music as the sunshiny waves
made in their glad, listening ears? It was like a picture out of
Hiawatha. At least it seemed to strike our young lady so, who in a voice
of peculiar sweetness and power recited the opening of the twenty-second
book of that poem:--

"By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant Summer morning,
Hiawatha stood and waited.

All the air was full of freshness.
All the earth was bright and joyous,
And before him, through the sunshine,
Westward toward the neighboring forest
Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo,
Passed the bees, the honey-makers,
Burning, singing in the sunshine.

Bright above him shone the heavens,
Level spread the lake before him;
From its bosom leaped the sturgeon,
Sparkling, flashing in the sunshine;
On its margin the great forest
Stood reflected in the water,
Every treetop had its shadow
Motionless beneath the water."

"Thank you, Miss," said Hugh, gallantly. "We only need a wigwam with
smoke curling from it under these trees, and a 'birch canoe with
paddles, rising, sinking on the water, dripping, flashing in the
sunshine,' to complete the picture. It's a pity the Indians ever left
this shore."

"So the settlers of Minnesota thought in '62," observed Vincent,
ironically.

"The Indians would have been all right if the white man had stayed
away," replied the Historian, hotly.

"In that case we should not be here now, and, consequently"--

What promised to be quite a warm discussion was killed in the embryo by
the captain's clear cry, "All aboard!"

Once more we were steaming westward toward the land of the Dacotahs.
That night we all sat up till after midnight to see the last of our
lake, for in the morning Duluth would be in sight. It was a night never
to be forgotten. The idle words and deeds of my companions have faded
from my mind, but never will the memory of the bright lake rippling
under that moonlit sky.

A c