Year: 1872

J with an 'enthuse' to see the Falls very early, before people got there and spoiled the sentiment of the place. Pa said we were foolish and romantic, and would be extremely uncomfortable, and probably catch our deaths of cold, but he made no real objection so we went. It was the first day of May"

 ''Yon've been at Niagara? We'll, you can't think how different, and how-well, rather dreadful-it is out of the season. We got in at midnight. The Cataract House looked all dark and deserted, but man opened the door and took us into that big square hall, where there was huge Morning Glory stove with flaming isin- glass eyes. l assure you the sight was welcome, for we were half frozen.

 "Juliet, still under the influence of her 'cnthuse,' asked for rooms on the cataract side of the house. But the man couldn't give them to us. That side of the house was always kept shut up in tue winter, he said, and tho rooms were not yet in order. He made us comfortable elsewhere, how ever, and, for my part, was not sorry to be little further from the river. never heard it sound as it did that night. The air fairly throbbed and trembled. It was like the breathing and panting of some savage animal. I lay awake the longest time, and all my dreams seemed to be oyershadowed and pervaded by the near presence of the strong, fierce thing.

 ''Next morning the sun shone brightly. forgot my terrors and every thing else except the beauty of the place. The river was full Of ice, clear green ice. which the rapids bore along in whirling, tri- umphant way, as if it were load of stolen emeralds, all cut and polished and ready for setting. Ice fringed the edges oi the shore here and there. Men with poles were trying to break it up, so that the water could get in and turn the wheels of mill. I had forgotten that there was mill. Somehow the sight of it made me angry. Think of penning Niagara up and forcing it to he useful It is as bad as, setting Sampson to grind among the slaves.

 The air was warm with sun, but the melting ice gave it a zest and sparkle like Champaigne. It exhilarated me so that wanted to dance at every step, and I chattered and rattlcd to Juliet till it fairly distracted her. She was in a state of high-pressure romance, and I guessed from the lar-away expression of her eyes and the way she played with her note book that she was composing a poem. Outlet writes really pretty verses, did you know :? I'll show you some, if you like). So, after while, mercitully took myself off, and after sitting few minutes by the American Fall, started off on a solitary ramble.

 q forgot to say that earlier in the morn- ing we had been all over Goat Island in hack. It was rather hard to find one, for the stables hadn't opened for the season either. Think of its being hard to get hack at Niagara, where usually the difficult ty is to get away from their gaping doors and importunate drivers. And the shops, too, they had barely thing in the windows Leftover fans from last year and few fy-specked stereoscopic views, that was all. Don't tell MT. Howells, but saw in one of them the very fan which Basil bought for Isabella on their wedding jour- ney.' You remember it, that dreadful Magenta one with the yellow bird in the middle2 We'll, there it was, the very fan. She must have exchanged it when his back was turned, and trusted to bis never finding out the difference. Pm sure l should have done just the same in her case!

 "Can you fancy Niagara with no brides We met just one girl i'll gray poplln. with her Lead on the shoulder of new coat. Immagine it-only one! There weren't any peep-shows, or boys with spectroscopes, or any photographers urging us to pose for our pictures with the Falls as back ground. Not a single person rushed out to invite us to see the view from their back-door at twenty five cents apiece. You can't think how pleasantly one misses these things, though I must say I hardly knew the place. But here I am running on, and forgetting Goat Island, where I began to take you, and where it happened Il mean, of course, meeting Jack and all that.

 '1t had been so perfectly lovely there in the morning while we were driving about that, now l was left to my own devices, l was seized with desire to go over again and sit for good long while. So few people were crossing that the gate keeper remembered my face and let me go in free, Tolls were good for twenty-four hours, he said. So 1 walked over the long bridge, and in five minutes had lost myself in the woods as fresh and wild and fragrant as if in the heart of the Adirondacks, instead of close to dozen big hotels, with dinner gongs and walters in white aprons.

 ''Goat Island, in the season, is a civil ized sort of place, you know. There are carriages and people, and benches and placards, and you don't feel in the least alone or in the country. But that day it seemed pure country. There were no people sitting on the benches, and some. how you didn't notice the placards. Birds popped out of every bush and tree, and chirped and sang as if for wager. The ground was just one carpet of flowers ancmones and spring beauties and beaut- full white lily-shaped things which found atterward were trilliums. And all the time the deep, cool roar and rush of the rapids blended and mixed with the birds songs and the beauty, as the minor instru- ments of an orchestra mix with the vivid scintillating violins. Juliet says 1 haven't a particle of romance in my nature, and perhaps she is right; but some how that morning 1 was wrought up and exalted. l laughed, but wanted to cry more than to laugh. You know the feeling-a sort of happy pain.

 "Well, at last I came to the steps which lead to Luna Island, and went down. I found seat close to that lovely little single fall which, you remember, plunges off there. All the Great Fail was in view. It was a perfect place, cool and yet sunny, and the water was SO delieiously clear up to the very edge that I could hardly keep out of it. I bathed my hands and face, and then let down my hair, which felt dusty after the rail-

 oad, and wrung it out and let it float of with the foam and over the bubbles of the fall. It was great fun, like game of play with some friendly giant. I was sitting in the sun afterward with it hang ing down my back to dry, and my lap full of trilliums, when steps sounded, and q gentleman came down the stairs.