Such feelings and reminiscences had, one day, drawn her into the green recesses of a forest, which stretched along the river, at some distance above the fort.  The familiar and oft-frequented path, wound through its deepest shades, beneath a canopy of lofty pines, whose thickly woven branches created a perpetual twilight.  She at length struck into a diverging track, and crossing a sunny slope, bared by the laborious settler for future improvement, reached a steep bank, which declined gently to the water’s edge.  It was one of those cheering days in early autumn, which sometimes burst upon us with the warmth and brilliancy of summer, and seem, for a brief space, to reanimate the torpid energies of nature.  The sun glowed in mid-day fervor, and myriads of the insect tribes, revived by his delusive smile, wheeled their giddy circles in the light, and sent their busy hum upon the calm, clear air.  The wild bee, provident for future wants, had sallied from his wintry hive, and sipped from every honied cup, to fill the treasures of his waxen cell; and a thousand birds of passage folded their downy pinions, and delayed their distant flight, till bleaker skies should chill their melody, and warn them to depart.

Lucie threw herself on a grassy knoll, beneath a group of trees, completely sheltered by the broad leaves of a native grape-vine which climbed the tallest trunk, and leaping from tree to tree, hung its beautiful garlands so thick around them, as to form a natural arbor, almost impervious to the brightest sun-beam.  The opposite shore of the river was thickly wooded, chiefly with those gigantic pines for which that province is still famed; but interspersed with other trees, whose less enduring foliage was marked by the approach of early frosts, which had already seared their verdure, and left those rich and varied tints that charm the eye in an autumnal landscape, while yet too brilliant to seem the presage of decay.  The river flowed on its still smooth course, receiving on its waves the reflection of nature, in her quiet but ever glorious array, and mingling its faint murmurs with the busy sounds which breathed from those countless living things, that sported their brief existence on its banks.

Not far above the spot where Lucie reclined in the luxury of dreaming indolence, the river was contracted by a ledge of rocks, through which the stream had worn a rough and narrow channel.  The full waters of the noble river, arrested by this confined and shallow passage, rushed violently over the steep and craggy rocks, and pouring their chafed and foaming current into the calm stream, which again expanded to its usual width, produced a fall of singular and romantic beauty.  Every rising tide forced back the waters from their natural course, precipitating them into the stream above with equal rapidity, though from a less appalling height.  Twice, in each tide, also, the sea was on a level with the river, which then flowed smoothly over the rocks, and at those times only, the dangerous obstruction was removed, and the navigation unimpeded.