their presence. They perceived that beauty was not only its own
excuse for being, but that it flattered and favored and profited the
world by consenting to be.

At Prescott, the boat on which they had come from Charlotte, and on which
they had been promised a passage without change to Montreal, stopped, and
they were transferred to a smaller steamer with the uncomfortable name of
Banshee. She was very old, and very infirm and dirty, and in every way
bore out the character of a squalid Irish goblin. Besides, she was
already heavily laden with passengers, and, with the addition of the
other steamer's people had now double her complement; and our friends
doubted if they were not to pass the Rapids in as much danger as
discomfort. Their fellow-passengers were in great variety, however, and
thus partly atoned for their numbers. Among them of course there was a
full force of brides from Niagara and elsewhere, and some curious forms
of the prevailing infatuation appeared. It is well enough, if she likes,
and it may even be very noble for a passably good-looking young lady to
marry a gentleman of venerable age; but to intensify the idea of
self-devotion by furtively caressing his wrinkled front seems too
reproachful of the general public; while, on the other hand, if the bride
is very young and pretty, it enlists in behalf of the white-haired
husband the unwilling sympathies of the spectator to see her the centre
of a group of young people, and him only acknowledged from time to time
by a Parthian snub. Nothing, however, could have been more satisfactory
than the sisterly surrounding of this latter bride. They were of a better
class of Irish people; and if it had been any sacrifice for her to marry
so old a man, they were doing their best to give the affair at least the
liveliness of a wake. There were five or six of those great handsome
girls, with their generous curves and wholesome colors, and they were
every one attended by a good-looking colonial lover, with whom they joked
in slightly brogued voices, and laughed with careless Celtic laughter.
One of the young fellows presently lost his hat overboard, and had to
wear the handkerchief of his lady about his head; and this appeared to be
really one of the best things in the world, and led to endless banter.
They were well dressed, and it could be imagined that the ancient
bridegroom had come in for the support of the whole good-looking,
healthy, light-hearted family. In some