Then why stay at home, my dear child, when all is prepared? Why avoid an excursion to which you have been looking forward with so much interest? Even now our friends must be waiting for us. What has so saddened you, my own Marie?'

Mrs. Chapelle, as she spoke, placed her arm round the neck of her beautiful daughter, and kissed her pale forehead.

'I-I was awakened

She hesitated, her large eyes filled with tears, and she hid her face in her mother's bosom.

'I was awakened, mother, at day-break this morning by a loud, hoarse cry, seemingly at my very ear: it said, 'Beware! beware!'-at least I thought so. Springing up, startled as if a thunder-bolt had struck the house, I looked round the room, but could distinguish nothing in the gloom. Thinking it the deception of a wild dream, I lay down again, but in a little while again the cry was uttered, louder, harsher than before. Aroused by the startling sound, I sprang out of bed, my heart beating wildly with terror, and there, on the sill of the open window, stood a large raven, black as night, and croaking as if the fiend himself had given it utterance. I moved forward, it turned its wicked black eye full upon me, winked, croaked, and flew away. That's all, mother: if I go to-day, I fear I shall never come back again. Don't laugh at me; indeed I cannot help it: but — but, mother, I will go; I will shake off these silly forebodings; let us forget it.'

'The resolution is well formed: do so. The ALMIGHTY FATHER has taught the raven his notes, as well as the nightingale, or your own Canary, and there is music in each, but prophecy in neither, love.'

THE Curtain was up.

The act had commenced.

The sun had drawn up the curtain from before the scene, the curtain of darkness, studded with stars, and hidden them high in the proscenium. On the mighty stage were visible the Rideau canal, with its hill of granite locks, the magnificent masonry of man; the everlasting mountains and huge rocks, the magnificent masonry of God; while be2

VOL. XLVII.

tween them rolled the beautiful Ottawa, from its source seven hundred miles away in the ice regions; and in the fore-ground foaming, hissing, surging, the 'cataract of real water' dashed on, on the way to its ocean tomb, and sent up everlastingly its cloud of foam and spray toward heaven, like a white-winged messenger to the mercy-seat.

Its dome was the huge vault of the blue ether, frescoed with clouds, whence the sun-lamp hung, and flooded with light the actors, the scenes, and the audience. The birds and winds, and the deep-toned sombre base of the roaring fall made its orchestra. The foot-lights were dancing rain-bows, created by every movement of the sun-lit spray, and in the back-ground were the Indian and bear-peopled forests which reach to the Polar seas. Above and beyond all, for those who had eyes to see and ears to hear, echoes of the sphere-melodies might be caught, and glimpses of that heaven and hell, of which our worldplay of Life' is but the emblem the mirror held up to that nature. In a few hours, the 'drop' will fall over this act of a day; in a few days the play will end, the curtain of doom fall, and all the lights be put out. Then with a smile or a shudder, as we have applauded or performed well or ill, we shall look back from the measureless existence beyond the grave to the mimic scene.

Surrounded by all this, and standing on the suspension-bridge that hangs over the Ottawa, graceful and aerial as an inverted rain-bow shorn of its colors, and harnessed for man's use, stood a party gazing at the cataract, as gay a one as the sun shone upon that day, in all the world-wide theatre.

THE Sylph-like Meta Bell,' graceful as the white foam and spray; the President,' with fifty winters on his shoulders, and fifty summers in his heart, and a vivacity never tiring, that made an atmosphere about him; the Editor,' with fusion for his friends, and confusion for his enemies, and whose 'columns were a stone of stumbling and rock of offence to his opponents; Lord Cate,' the practical; Lady Cate,' the ideal; 'Diana,' the improvisatrice; 'Marie,' with the musical laugh and gazelle eyes; Contractor Thorne,' and his beautiful bride; the 'Fast Man,' whose affection for his pretty friends, pale sherry, and puns, was perennial; and a dozen others, all 'merry as a marriage-bell,' had left their offices, boudoirs, hearth-stones, cares, and native land, to wile away a few days with nature in the far north.

Crossing the broad St. Lawrence, they had been whirled away by the iron horse, whose neck is indeed clothed with thunder, and who laughs at the shaking of the spear, across the Canadas, between primeval forests and half-cleared fields, where the wheat had sprung up, and was trying, after a most vain and melancholy fashion, to bring forth fruit a hundred-fold, by log-cabins that would frighten the romance of the school-girl's cottage-love from her fanciful brain, and past horses that seemed fast' indeed, where they stood, beyond the power of moving, and whose fleshless bodies showed 'points' enough to satisfy the fastidious perceptions of a Long-Island horseman.

They had gazed from the 'Barracks' at 'Ottawa City' upon the

beautiful scene where the ALMIGHTY has so visibly made his mark; had gone under the Rideau Falls, where the thin rocks hang over-head like a huge shelf, whence the waters fall like a lace-curtain, graceful and white, and make a chamber fit for the bridal of a water-nymph. From the 'Lake des Chats' they had seen the forest-home of the wolf, the bear, and the Indian, reaching thence onward to Hudson Bay and the ice-regions. In the little Aylmer village, the last home of civilized life, they had danced till broad day-light,' and at the witching-hour of night had startled the little place from its propriety with their fireworks and music. Now they were returning toward their homes, and standing face to face with the Chaudière,' the mighty cataract of the Ottawa, the 'hell of waters,' the 'smoke of whose burning' ascends evermore toward that ALMIGHTY power which gave it its force, its beauty, and its awe. Mirth, wit, sentiment, humor had been nevertiring companions on their route; but now they were hushed into silence before the scene, where the water in wild wrath boiled, roared, and dashed, and where quietly the beautiful rain-bow hung over it in the white spray

'Like a child smiling on a battle-field, or a flag of truce amid its horrors,' said Diana.

'Or,' said Meta Bell, 'like the smile of a woman at a bridal where her lover is married to another.'

No, not yet; but the fall and rain-bow seemed to emblem the raging bitterness, that fiction and imagination have taught me, might lie under such a smile.'

'Or,' said the President, like an insurance policy in your hand when a conflagration like a destroying angel is consuming your property.' 'Good!' cried the Fast Man, and certainly new; or like the moon shining on the 'smash-up' of an express train; or the gas on a 'form' knocked into 'pi;' but a truce to your similes. Look! look!'

THE Ottawa, which empties into the St. Lawrence at Montreal, takes its rise beyond Grand Lake, some eight hundred miles away in the far north, and of course is a river of considerable magnitude, in places several miles wide. It contains many rapids and falls, the principal of which are at Bytown, now called Ottawa City, where the river, confined within a rocky channel of half a mile in width, rushes on one hand over rocks and through chasms that seem to have been the work of earthquakes, and on the other, the main body of the river falls a distance of some eighty feet, in a sort of circular basin, the form having given it its old name of 'La Chaudière,' and from this boiler or caldron a column of spray rises, similar to Niagara. It is a most grand, picturesque, and beautiful fall.

The valley of the Upper Ottawa being the best timber-land of the province, and timber being indeed its only produce, the government has been at much expense and trouble in erecting works to facilitate its transportation to market. The principal of these works is at Ottawa

City, where an immense dam has been erected to preserve the rafts from the cataract; and by the side of this cataract, between a rock island and the main shore, a race-way, chute, or slide is formed, which consists of two rapids and three artificial falls, overcoming, in the distance of about half a mile, the entire height of the main fall. On each side of this chute, and for some distance above it, is a double line of string-pieces, formed of huge floating logs, flattened at the upper side, and chained together at the ends. Between these the rafts, or rather sections of rafts, called' drams,' are rushed down the falls, from the upper to the lower river, and it was one of them, on its seemingly fearful passage, that had attracted the attention of the party.

The Fast Man at once suggested that it would be an amusing and interesting finale to the excursion if they should make a ' voyage' down the falls on one of these drams. The idea was received with acclamations by most, and the timid ones were reassured by the President, who had already been down on one, and assured them of its perfect safety; so the wagons were again in requisition, spirits rose with a new excitement, rapidly as mercury in the sun-shine, and after a pleasant little drive by the river-side to where the rafts were congregated, one was selected, the raftsman bribed into good humor, and the party, all sunshine and happiness, passed on board. The rope, composed of a hickory sapling, was loosened, and the odd oblong log-boat floated out into the stream, when the President, looking round to see if all were there, cried Lady Cate, is your husband aboard?'

'Probably,' said the lady quietly; 'I saw him run through a pine saw-mill a little while ago.'

'Ah! Lady Cate, they must have wise saws indeed in that mill to turn out such a board.'

The proof of which,' said the Fast Man, I suppose is, that they cut him on his first introduction; but see! he is there, hurrying down to the river; a run on the bank, by the way, Mr. President, and I'm first teller.'

'Then pay out the rope and check the raft,' said the President.

The raftsman opened his eye, (he had but one,) apparently in a vain effort to comprehend the drift of the conversation, then turned to attend to that of the raft, as Lord Cate sprang on board. He had lingered behind, gathering wild flowers for the bride, and wild mint to flavor some refreshments, the materials for which the Fast Man had been careful to transfer from the wagons to the raft.

The raftsman, their captain, was evidently a plant from the outskirts, if not beyond the pale of civilization. His face was bronzed with extreme heat, cold, and exposure. He wore a skin-cap, surmounted by a fine sable marten-tail, well patched corduroy pants, and flannel shirt, a shoe on one foot, an Indian moccasin on the other, and chewed tobacco incessantly. That must have been a thirsty fish which could swallow the water within yards of him. He seemed in the main good-natured, listened with curious wonder to the conversation, and appeared to be not a little dashed at the strange and unusual passengerlist he had taken on board.

The raft moved on.

Lady Cate,' said the Fast Man, 'a glass of pale sherry with you, old as your grandfather, and bright as your fancies.'

'Wine with such a scene and such a day! No! See the trees in their living green, on those summits embracing the clouds; the wild flowers on those banks, spreading their beauties for almost no one to see, unless it be indeed the angels; and the balmy air too; the day seems to me as if it had been made for paradise, and was lingering here a few hours on its way home.'

Bravo!' cried the Fast Man; the weather returns its compliments for having something unusual said about it. Diana, a glass of sherry, pale as your thoughtful forehead, and exhilarating as your poetry.'

Diana withdrew her eyes from the sky, at which she had been looking, and shook her head.

What are you thinking of, Diana?' said Marie.

'Thinking of, dear girl, that those little white clouds are like flags of truce, held out by the angels, to bring us to a parley, that they may try and persuade us to leave our sin-war against the HOLIEST, and be one again with our KING, our FATHER, and our God.'

The tears stood in Marie's eyes, and she leaned her head upon Diana's arm.

'Marie,' said Diana, 'you have been the gayest of our party, and if I divine rightly, the saddest too. Your merry, echoing, musical laugh has had something in it of strange and weird, that at times has almost made me shudder. It has seemed to me, if I may use the paradox, a beautiful falsehood. Am I not right, Marie? So sad, and at your age ! What weighs on your spirits? Why, Marie crying! turn, love, or they will see it. Does the descent of the falls terrify you?'

Marie wept quietly a few moments, then looked up and said:

At my age! O Diana! the clouds look darkest in spring, they are contrasted with such glowing sun-light; in winter we look for them as a matter of course. No, I am not alarmed at the descent, and would not leave the raft if I could. It is an undefined terror that has hung over me ever since we left home, and darkens my sky, where indeed there are no clouds visible no cause for the darkness that I can see.' The President here suggested that some one should write an account of the excursion after they reached home, and offered to help the historian by keeping a log' himself.

The raftsman said he didn't care who kept a log, if he only paid him for it; and opened his eye wider and took a double quid, when he saw the smiles his observation excited.

Our Fast friend is very literally making a log'-book,' said the President, pointing to where he was cutting names and dates on a stick of timber; but Diana will do it better than any of us. Diana, will you not write an account of our trip?'

'No, I would not keep a log of such an excursion; its sayings and doings are too like the children's soap-bubbles in the sun-light, beautifully round and rainbow-tinted perhaps, but attempt to remove them for others' inspection or admiration, and they vanish into thin air;' and she resumed her seat by Marie's side.

They had now reached a point where the channel made by the