degree he looked it, and wore but
a rueful countenance for a bridegroom; so that a very young newly married
couple, who sat next the jolly sister-and-loverhood could not keep their
pitying eyes off his downcast face. "What if he, too, were young at
heart!" the kind little wife's regard seemed to say.

For the sake of the slight air that was stirring, and to have the best
view of the Rapids, the Banshee's whole company was gathered upon the
forward promenade, and the throng was almost as dense as in a six-o'clock
horse-car out from Boston. The standing and sitting groups were closely
packed together, and the expanded parasols and umbrellas formed a nearly
unbroken roof. Under this Isabel chatted at intervals with the Ellisons,
who sat near; but it was not an atmosphere that provoked social feeling,
and she was secretly glad when after a while they shifted their position.

It was deadly hot, and most of the people saddened and silenced in the
heat. From time to time the clouds idling about overhead met and
sprinkled down a cruel little shower of rain that seemed to make the air
less breathable than before. The lonely shores were yellow with drought;
the islands grew wilder and barrener; the course of the river was for
miles at a stretch through country which gave no signs of human life. The
St. Lawrence has none of the bold picturesqueness of the Hudson, and is
far more like its far-off cousin the Mississippi. Its banks are low like
the Mississippi's, its current, swift, its way through solitary lands.
The same sentiment of early adventure hangs about each: both are haunted
by visions of the Jesuit in his priestly robe, and the soldier in his
mediaeval steel; the same gay, devout, and dauntless race has touched
them both with immortal romance. If the water were of a dusky golden
color, instead of translucent green, and the shores and islands were
covered with cottonwoods and willows instead of dark cedars, one could
with no great effort believe one's self on the Mississippi between Cairo
and St. Louis, so much do the great rivers strike one as kindred in the
chief features of their landscape. Only, in tracing this resemblance you
do not know just what to do with the purple mountains of Vermont, seen
vague against the horizon from the St. Lawrence, or with the quaint
little French villages that begin to show themselves as you penetrate
farther down into Lower Canada. These look so peaceful, with their
dormer-windowed cotta