all over (as many of the public buildings are), and this and other cheap public edifices stand in the midst of a large square, which is surrounded by shabby shops for the most part.  The town is laid out on a generous scale, and it is to be regretted that we could not have seen it when it enjoyed the glory of a governor and court and ministers of state, and all the paraphernalia of a royal parliament.  That the productive island, with its system of free schools, is about to enter upon a prosperous career, and that Charlottetown is soon to become a place of great activity, no one who converses with the natives can doubt; and I think that even now no traveler will regret spending an hour or two there; but it is necessary to say that the rosy inducements to tourists to spend the summer there exist only in the guide-books.

We congratulated ourselves that we should at least have a night of delightful sleep on the steamboat in the quiet of this secluded harbor.  But it was wisely ordered otherwise, to the end that we should improve our time by an interesting study of human nature.  Towards midnight, when the occupants of all the state-rooms were supposed to be in profound slumber, there was an invasion of the small cabin by a large and loquacious family, who had been making an excursion on the island railway.  This family might remind an antiquated novel-reader of the delightful Brangtons in “Evelina;” they had all the vivacity of the pleasant cousins of the heroine of that story, and the same generosity towards the public in regard to their family affairs.  Before they had been in the cabin an hour, we felt as if we knew every one of them.  There was a great squabble as to where and how they should sleep; and when this was over, the revelations of the nature of their beds and their peculiar habits of sleep continued to pierce the thin deal partitions of the adjoining state-rooms.  When all the possible trivialities of vacant minds seemed to have been exhausted, there followed a half-hour of “Goodnight, pa; good-night, ma;” “Goodnight, pet;” and “Are you asleep, ma?” “No.”  “Are you asleep, pa?” “No; go to sleep, pet.”  “I’m going.  Good-night, pa; good-night, ma.”  “Goodnight, pet.”  “This bed is too short.”  “Why don’t you take the other?” “I’m all fixed now.”  “Well, go to sleep; good-night.”  “Good-night, ma; goodnight, pa,”—­no answer.  “Good-night,pa.”  “Goodnight, pet.”  “Ma, are you asleep?” “Most.”  “This bed is all lumps; I wish I’d gone downstairs.”  “Well, pa will get up.”  “Pa, are you asleep?” “Yes.”  “It’s better now; good-night, pa.”  “Goodnight, pet.”  “Good-night, ma.”  “Good-night, pet.”  And so on in an exasperating repetition, until every passenger on the boat must have been thoroughly informed of the manner in which this interesting family habitually settled itself to repose.