vestor and hardy fishermen of the old French town.

I have alluded before to the long Acadian twilights, the tender and loving
leave-takings between the day and his earth; just as two fond and foolish
young people separate sometimes, or as the quaint old poet in Britannia's
Pastorals describes it:

"Look as a lover, with a lingering kiss,
About to part with the best half that's his:
Fain would he stay, but that he fears to do it,
And curseth time for so fast hastening to it:
Now takes his leave, and yet begins anew
To make less vows than are esteemed true:
Then says, he must be gone, and then doth find
Something he should have spoke that's out of mind:
_And while he stands to look for't in her eyes,
Their sad, sweet glance so ties his faculties
To think from what he parts that he is now
As far from leaving her, or knowing how,
As when he came_; begins his former strain,
To kiss, to vow, and take his leave again;
Then turns, comes back, sighs, pants, and yet doth go,
Fain to retire, and loth to leave her so."

Even so these fond and foolish old institutions part company in northern
regions, and, at the early hour of two o'clock in the morning, the amorous
twilight reappears in his foggy mantle, to look at the fair face of his
ancient sweetheart in the month of June.

Tea being over, the "cluck" of the row-locks woke the echoes of the
twilight bay, as our little yawl put off again for the new town, with a
gay evening party, consisting of the captain, his lady, the baby, Picton
and myself, with a brace of Newfoundland oarsmen. If our galley was not a
stately one, it was at least a cheerful vessel, and as the keel grated on
the snow-white pebbles of the beach, Picton and I sprang ashore, with all
the gallantry of a couple of Sir Walter Raleighs, to assist the queen of
the "Balaklava" upon _terra firma_. Her majesty being landed, we made a
royal procession to the largest hutch on the green slope before us, the
captain carrying the insignia of his marital office (the baby) with great
pomp and awkward ceremony, in front, while his lady, Picton and I,
loitered in the rear. We had barely crossed the sill of the hutch-door,
before we felt quite at home and welcome. The same cheery fire in the
chimney-place, the spotless floor, the tidy rush-bottomed chairs, and a
whole nest of little white-heads and twinkling eyes, just on the border of
a bright patchwork quil