e formal introduction, which is omitted in no
circle of American life to which I have ever been admitted, took place
at tea half an hour after, when Mrs. Grills, who always voyaged with her
husband, brought in the flapjacks from the kitchen. "Miss Jones," said
Grills, as I came into the meal, leaving Zekiel at the tiller,--"Miss
Jones, this is a young man who is going to Albany. I don't rightly know
how to call your name, sir." I said my name was Carter. Then he said,
"Mr. Carter, this is Miss Jones. Mrs. Grills, Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter,
Mrs. Grills. She is my wife." And so our _partie carree_ was established
for the voyage.

In these days there are few people who know that a journey on a canal is
the pleasantest journey in the world. A canal has to go through fine
scenery. It cannot exist unless it follow through the valley of a
stream. The movement is so easy that, with your eyes shut, you do not
know you move. The route is so direct, that when you are once shielded
from the sun, you are safe for hours. You draw, you read, you write, or
you sew, crochet, or knit. You play on your flute or your guitar,
without one hint of inconvenience. At a "low bridge" you duck your head
lest you lose your hat,--and that reminder teaches you that you are
human. You are glad to know this, and you laugh at the memento. For the
rest of the time you journey, if you are "all right" within, in elysium.

I rode one of those horses perhaps two or three hours a day. At locks I
made myself generally useful. At night I walked the deck till one
o'clock, with my pipe or without it, to keep guard against the
lock-thieves. The skipper asked me sometimes, after he found I could
"cipher," to disentangle some of the knots in his bills of lading for
him. But all this made but a little inroad in those lovely autumn days,
and for the eight days that we glided along,--there is one blessed level
which is seventy miles long,--I spent most of my time with Fausta. We
walked together on the tow-path to get our appetites for dinner and for
supper. At sunrise I always made a cruise inland, and collected the
gentians and black alder-berries and colored leaves, with which she
dressed Mrs. Grill's table. She took an interest in my wretched
sketch-book, and though she did not and does not draw well, she did show
me how to spread an even tint, which I never knew before. I was working
up my French. She knew about as much and as little as I did, and we
read Mad. Reybau