And the young subaltern lit a cigar to console himself for the withdrawal of the clear blue eyes that looked so deep under the shadow of the umbrella, and tried to find as much piquancy in the “funny book” he had recently purchased at the St. Michael’s book-stall, while the good ship went ploughing on, past wooden villages, brown houses picked out with white, and perhaps here and there a little orange-frocked child giving a characteristic dash of colour.

Then, as the sun sank lower, the most gorgeous hues came into the sky.  But, while every one was on deck gazing on its almost tropical vividness, a film stole between, a shivering dampness pervaded the air, and soon a dense fog drove the chagrined passengers back into the saloon.

The captain went to his bridge, and the tea-bell rang soon after.  People were beginning to talk sociably to their neighbours, and a mild hilarity reigned, when a violent concussion, followed by a sudden cessation of the paddles, caused a general rush from the table.

Bluebell, in the act of receiving the second supply of coffee, was aroused from her immediate bewilderment by a scalding douche down her neck—­the waiter, a young German with heart disease painted on his livid lips and pasty complexion, having held the coffee-pot suspended topsy-turvy for an instant, and then fallen in a fit on the floor.

All the men had crowded on deck, and it soon became known that they had run into a log raft, which, though no lives were lost had been nearly swamped, and much injured by the collision.  The “St. Michael,” too, had received a bulge, which rendered a little tinkering at the first port desirable.

The first alarm of the passengers being lulled, and the panic having subsided into the excitement of a danger passed, public interest became concentrated on the young waiter, who still lay in a death like swoon, till, eventually 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.