ntually resuscitated by means of one of the numerous little
brandy-flasks that popped out from sympathetic female bags, he was borne
off by his napkin flapping fraternity to their crystal cave of tumblers.

Little sleep did Cecil get on her narrow perch that night, for her
sisters, in their dreams, were ever in a sinking ship, or struggling
in the foam-driven rapids. Even her heart beat quicker when the
paddle-wheels suddenly ceased, and ominous voices, indistinctly heard,
appeared in agonized consultation. A familiar sound of knocking and
hammering, however, suggested that they must have put into port for the
repairs determined on; and, grasping her scanty complement of bed-clothes
that were slipping to the floor, Cecil conveyed the re-assuring
intelligence to her sisters, and they composed themselves to sleep at
last.

Another day's progress down the beautiful river,--narrow enough at
intervals to see both shores, the Stars and Stripes in American villages,
as well as the Union Jack in those of the "Dominion," as it is now
called,--and then they entered among the thousand islands of the great
St. Lawrence.

Everybody was on deck watching their changing shapes, some apparently all
rock, and others a bower of greenery, and admiring the skilful steering
of the large vessel among them. Soon after noon the first rapid was shot,
a bubbling, seething whirlpool, with clouds of white foam beaten up by
the jagged teeth of the sunken rocks.

Winding in and out among the islands till late in the afternoon, they
reached their port, and repaired to the hotel, to pursue the rest of
their journey by land.

A ricketty waggon--not an English hay-cart, but a spidery trap, with high
wheels, so called--and a dilapidated buggy were placed at their disposal.
Two children and the old nurse remained to follow in the coach, and the
advance guard started, after an anxious consultation as to whether the
wheel of the buggy could be trusted to revolve the twelve miles without
dislocation.

The corduroy roads were in their usual inefficient state,--whole planks
had disappeared in places, and were loose in others,--so locomotion
became a series of jolts and bumps. The drivers wished to save two miles
by crossing a river, and spoke confidently of a bridge, which, on
arriving at, proved to be only some pieces of timber cast wholesale into
it, some of them negligently nailed together.

Mrs. Rolleston, who was not of an adventurous nature, thoug