allied from his wintry hive, and
sipped from every honied cup, to fill the treasures of his waxen cell;
and a thousand birds of passage folded their downy pinions, and delayed
their distant flight, till bleaker skies should chill their melody, and
warn them to depart.

Lucie threw herself on a grassy knoll, beneath a group of trees,
completely sheltered by the broad leaves of a native grape-vine which
climbed the tallest trunk, and leaping from tree to tree, hung its
beautiful garlands so thick around them, as to form a natural arbor,
almost impervious to the brightest sun-beam. The opposite shore of the
river was thickly wooded, chiefly with those gigantic pines for which
that province is still famed; but interspersed with other trees, whose
less enduring foliage was marked by the approach of early frosts, which
had already seared their verdure, and left those rich and varied tints
that charm the eye in an autumnal landscape, while yet too brilliant to
seem the presage of decay. The river flowed on its still smooth course,
receiving on its waves the reflection of nature, in her quiet but ever
glorious array, and mingling its faint murmurs with the busy sounds
which breathed from those countless living things, that sported their
brief existence on its banks.

Not far above the spot where Lucie reclined in the luxury of dreaming
indolence, the river was contracted by a ledge of rocks, through which
the stream had worn a rough and narrow channel. The full waters of the
noble river, arrested by this confined and shallow passage, rushed
violently over the steep and craggy rocks, and pouring their chafed and
foaming current into the calm stream, which again expanded to its usual
width, produced a fall of singular and romantic beauty. Every rising
tide forced back the waters from their natural course, precipitating
them into the stream above with equal rapidity, though from a less
appalling height. Twice, in each tide, also, the sea was on a level with
the river, which then flowed smoothly over the rocks, and at those times
only, the dangerous obstruction was removed, and the navigation
unimpeded.

Lucie had remarked the waters as unusually placid, on first approaching
the bank, and she did not advert to this perpetual change, till their
loud and increasing murmurs had long fallen unheeded on her ears. Her
attention was at length aroused; and though she had often witnessed it
before, she gazed long, with unwearied pleasure