At half-past eight the steamer rounded into view of the hotels and cottages at Alexandria Bay, and the enchanting scene drew all the passengers to the deck.

The Thousand Islands Hotel, and the Crossman House, where our party found excellent accommodations, were blazing and sparkling like the spectacular palaces in an opera scene.  Rows of colored lamps were set thickly along the shore, and disposed everywhere among the rocks on which the Crossman House stands; lights glistened from all the islands, from a thousand row-boats, and in all the windows.  It was very like Venice, seen from the lagoon, when the Italians make a gala-night.

If Alexandria Bay was less enchanting as a spectacle by daylight, it was still exceedingly lovely and picturesque; islands and bays and winding waterways could not be better combined for beauty, and the structures that taste or ambition has raised on the islands or rocky points are well enough in keeping with the general holiday aspect.  One of the prettiest of these cottages is the Bonnicastle of the late Dr. Holland, whose spirit more or less pervades this region.  It is charmingly situated on a projecting point of gray rocks veined with color, enlivened by touches of scarlet bushes and brilliant flowers planted in little spots of soil, contrasting with the evergreen shrubs.  It commands a varied and delicious prospect, and has an air of repose and peace.

I am sorry to say that while Forbes and Miss Lamont floated, so to speak, in all this beauty, like the light-hearted revelers they were, King was scarcely in a mood to enjoy it.  It seemed to him fictitious and a little forced.  There was no message for him at the Crossman House.  His restlessness and absentmindedness could not escape the observation of Mrs. Farquhar, and as the poor fellow sadly needed a confidante, she was soon in possession of his story.

“I hate slang,” she said, when he had painted the situation black enough to suit Mrs. Bartlett Glow even, “and I will not give my sex away, but I know something of feminine doubtings and subterfuges, and I give you my judgment that Irene is just fretting herself to death, and praying that you may have the spirit to ride rough-shod over her scruples.  Yes, it is just as true in this prosaic time as it ever was, that women like to be carried off by violence.  In their secret hearts, whatever they may say, they like to see a knight batter down the tower and put all the garrison except themselves to the sword.  I know that I ought to be on Mrs. Glow’s side.  It is the sensible side, the prudent side; but I do admire recklessness in love.  Probably you’ll be uncomfortable, perhaps unhappy —­you are certain to be if you marry to please society and not yourself —­but better a thousand times one wild rush of real passion, of self-forgetting love, than an age of stupid, conventional affection approved by your aunt.  Oh, these calculating young people!” Mrs. Farquhar’s voice trembled and her eyes flashed.  “I tell you, my friend, life is not worth living in a conventional stagnation.  You see in society how nature revenges itself when its instincts are repressed.”