Murray Bay controlled their
grief, and as Mr. Arbuton turned from them, the boat, pushing out, left
them to their fashionable desolation. She struck across to the southern
shore, to land passengers for Cacouna, a watering-place greater than
Murray Bay. The tide, which rises fifteen feet at Quebec, is the
impulse, not the savor of the sea; but at Cacouna the water is salt, and
the sea-bathing lacks nothing but the surf; and hither resort in great
numbers the Canadians who fly their cities during the fierce, brief
fever of the northern summer. The watering-place village and hotel is
not in sight from the landing, but, as at Murray Bay, the sojourners
thronged the pier, as if the arrival of the steamboat were the great
event of their day. That afternoon they were in unusual force, having
come on foot and by omnibus and calash; and presently there passed down
through their ranks a strange procession with a band of music leading
the way to the steamer.

"It's an Indian wedding," Mr. Arbuton heard one of the boat's officers
saying to the gentleman with the ex-military air, who stood next him
beside the rail; and now, the band having drawn aside, he saw the bride
and groom,--the latter a common, stolid-faced savage, and the former
pretty and almost white, with a certain modesty and sweetness of mien.
Before them went a young American, with a jaunty Scotch cap and a visage
of supernatural gravity, as the master of ceremonies which he had
probably planned; arm in arm with him walked a portly chieftain in black
broadcloth, preposterously adorned on the breast with broad flat disks
of silver in two rows. Behind the bridal couple came the whole village
in pairs, men and women, and children of all ages, even to brown babies
in arms, gay in dress and indescribably serious in demeanor. They were
mated in some sort according to years and size; and the last couple were
young fellows paired in an equal tipsiness. These reeled and wavered
along the pier; and when the other wedding guests crowned the day's
festivity by going aboard the steamer, they followed dizzily down the
gangway. Midway they lurched heavily; the spectators gave a cry; but
they had happily lurched in opposite directions; their grip upon each
other's arms held, and a forward stagger launched them victoriously
aboard in a heap. They had scarcely disappeared from sight, when, having
as it were instantly satisfied their curiosity concerning the boat, the
other guests began