emergency. The Rolleston
children had sent her a travelling-bag; but not even a message came from
Cecil, which saddened Bluebell, but did not make her resentful, for she
could not but suspect that the former's engagement to Bertie had come to
an end, and that, in some way or other, she herself had been the cause of
it.

A touch of frost during the last fortnight had worked a transformation
on the foliage. The thousand islands were changed from green bowers to
the semblance of shrubberies of rhododendron, so brilliant were the
crimson and red of their leaves. They were associated in her mind with
Cecil, whose artistic eye revelled in the autumn tints, and was
perpetually painting and grouping them during the last fall.

It was rather lonely and monotonous in the river steamer. There was no
one on board that she knew, and, as each hour increased the distance from
all familiar places, a feeling of friendlessness stole over her.

Arrived at Quebec, every one seemed to push before and jostle her away;
but patiently following in the stream, she found herself, with a
sensation of relief on board the huge Leviathan steamer that was to be
her home across the broad Atlantic.

Some misgivings respecting luggage obtruded themselves. A porter had put
her portmanteau and bag on board, but the two trunks she had never seen.
No one seemed to attend to her till one man gruffly replied,--"That if
they were properly addressed, they would be put into the hold all right."
And Bluebell took comfort in the remembrance of the labels plentifully
nailed on by Aunt Jane, that she had then thought looked so nervously
ridiculous.

She sat for some time alone in the saloon, waiting till the rush for
state rooms should have a little subsided before making a timid request
for her own.

Several people were now returning, apparently with disburdened minds, for
anxious wrinkles were smoothed out into complacent curiosity. Bluebell
made an incoherent attack on the stewardess, who swept by, without
attending, and after being passed on from one official to the other, she
found herself half-proprietess of a dark confined den, with two berths,
two wash-hand-stands, and a sofa. Her partner in these luxuries had
apparently taken possession and gone, for rather a queer shawl lay on one
berth, and a singularly tasteless hat hung on a peg.

These significant articles deprived the little dungeon of all charms of
privacy, and, feeling as if it belonged so m