vern bars in the town, leaving the
girls chiefly to their own devices. So, as the weather was fine, Miss
Armytage and Jay walked about a great deal beside the broad brown river,
just unchained from ice, and rushing, floe-laden, towards the Chaudiere
Falls; through the wide rectangular streets, lined with the splendid
stores and massive houses of a busy population; through the village-like
suburbs, where each cottage was fronted with a garden; and ascended the
Major Hill, to behold the unrivalled view of forest, flood, and field
from its summit. Far to the right and left stretched a panorama, such as
only British North America could furnish; the great Ottawa river gliding
by, a hundred and fifty feet below, the long line of cataracts flashing
and dashing to the north, a framework of black forest closing into the
edge of the streets, and bounded itself on the horizon by high blue
mountains.

Here they were overtaken by Mr. Hiram Holt. He had seen them pass as he
sat in some lawyer's office near by, and followed them when his business
was finished. His first proposition was that they should go with him to
Mapleton, while their father chose to idle about Bytown. Miss Armytage
declined, for she hoped they might leave for Montreal in a day or two at
furthest; but if Mr. Holt commanded any influence there,--and she told
him, poor girl, the little plan of teaching which she had formed.

'Come, now,' quoth Hiram, after some conversation on that head, and a
promise of writing to friends in Montreal, 'take my arm, young lady, and
I'll show you some of our Ottawa lions. Biggest of all, to my fancy, is
the town itself--only twenty-five years old, and as large as if it had
been growing for centuries. The man is only in the prime of life who
felled the first tree on this site, and now the town covers as much
ground as Boston. Certainly the site is unrivalled.'

Edith, thinking a good deal of other more personally important things,
acquiesced in all he said.

'You see, it's the centre of everything: three magnificent rivers flow
together here, the Ottawa, Rideau, and Gatineau; water privilege is
unlimited; Chaudiere up yonder would turn all the mills in creation.
Now, do you know the reason it is called Chaudiere, my dear?'

This to Jay, who had to confess her ignorance.

'Because the vapour--do you see the cloud always ascending from the
crest of the Falls?--reminded somebody of the steam from a boiling
kettle. Hence these are t