The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Chance Acquaintance, by W. D. Howells

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Title: A Chance Acquaintance

Author: W. D. Howells

Release Date: June 11, 2006 [EBook #18555]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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_A Chance Acquaintance._

BY W. D. HOWELLS.

BOSTON:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY

Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co.

1873.

University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., Cambridge.

A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE.

I.

UP THE SAGUENAY.

On the forward promenade of the Saguenay boat which had been advertised
to leave Quebec at seven o'clock on Tuesday morning, Miss Kitty Ellison
sat tranquilly expectant of the joys which its departure should bring,
and tolerantly patient of its delay; for if all the Saguenay had not
been in promise, she would have thought it the greatest happiness just
to have that prospect of the St. Lawrence and Quebec. The sun shone with
a warm yellow light on the Upper Town, with its girdle of gray wall, and
on the red flag that drowsed above the citadel, and was a friendly
lustre on the tinned roofs of the Lower Town; while away off to the
south and east and west wandered the purple hills and the farmlit plains
in such dewy shadow and effulgence as would have been enough to make the
heaviest heart glad. Near at hand the river was busy with every kind of
craft, and in the distance was mysterious with silvery vapors; little
breaths of haze, like an ethereal colorless flame, exhaled from its
surface, and it all glowed with a lovely inner radiance. In the middle
distance a black ship was heaving anchor and setting sail, and the voice
of the seamen came soft and sad and yet wildly hopeful to the dreamy ear
of the young girl, whose soul at once went round th