this sort on our boat.  The female passengers were all neutrals, incapable, I should say, of making any impression whatever even under the most favorable circumstances.  They were probably women of the Provinces, and took their neutral tint from the foggy land they inhabit, which is neither a republic nor a monarchy, but merely a languid expectation of something undefined.  My comrade was disposed to resent the dearth of beauty, not only on this vessel but throughout the Provinces generally,—­a resentment that could be shown to be unjust, for this was evidently not the season for beauty in these lands, and it was probably a bad year for it.  Nor should an American of the United States be forward to set up his standard of taste in such matters; neither in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, nor Cape Breton have I heard the inhabitants complain of the plainness of the women.

On such a night two lovers might have been seen, but not on our boat, leaning over the taffrail,—­if that is the name of the fence around the cabin-deck, looking at the moon in the western sky and the long track of light in the steamer’s wake with unutterable tenderness.  For the sea was perfectly smooth, so smooth as not to interfere with the most perfect tenderness of feeling; and the vessel forged ahead under the stars of the soft night with an adventurous freedom that almost concealed the commercial nature of her mission.  It seemed —­this voyaging through the sparkling water, under the scintillating heavens, this resolute pushing into the opening splendors of night —­like a pleasure trip.  “It is the witching hour of half past ten,” said my comrade, “let us turn in.” (The reader will notice the consideration for her feelings which has omitted the usual description of “a sunset at sea.”)

When we looked from our state-room window in the morning we saw land.  We were passing within a stone’s throw of a pale-green and rather cold-looking coast, with few trees or other evidences of fertile soil.  Upon going out I found that we were in the harbor of Eastport.  I found also the usual tourist who had been up, shivering in his winter overcoat, since four o’clock.  He described to me the magnificent sunrise, and the lifting of the fog from islands and capes, in language that made me rejoice that he had seen it.  He knew all about the harbor.  That wooden town at the foot of it, with the white spire, was Lubec; that wooden town we were approaching was Eastport.  The long island stretching clear across the harbor was Campobello.  We had been obliged to go round it, a dozen miles out of our way, to get in, because the tide was in such a stage that we could not enter by the Lubec Channel.  We had been obliged to enter an American harbor by British waters.