THE ISLET-GEMMED ST. LAWRENCE.
On a morning late in December Mrs. Gower sat alone in her pretty restful
library, with its olive-green velvet cushions and hangings, its
water-lilies, like the beauties in our bay, with their green stalks and
leaves painted on the panelled walls, its English ivy trained up and
around the Queen Anne mantel, with graceful palms standing on either
side of the floral blossoms on the stand. The occupant looks well in a
close-fitting gown of navy blue flannel, embroidered in rose silk; there
is a half-smile on the lips, and the dreaminess of some tender thought
in the dark eyes, as she idly opens and closes a black lace fan, with a
spray of honeysuckle painted thereon. A gentleman's card lay beside her
work-basket on the table.
"So Alexander Blair is his name," she thought; "how very, very long,"
with a sigh, "it has taken to come to me--his name, of course, I mean."
She thought, with a smile, putting the card to her lips, "how foolish of
me, but I have always had that way. I remember travelling to Port Elgin,
from Toronto, and on my arrival, my trunk, containing my dearest
treasures, was not forthcoming. I was wild with grief, when, after
enriching the telegraph offices, at the expense of my purse, in three
days it was again in my possession; and what did I do, why kissed and
fondled both trunk and key. Elaine Gower, you are a foolish,
impressionable woman. And so I dropped my fan at the Grand, last night.
His card says, 'With compliments, dropped at the theatre.' He scarcely
seemed a stranger seated beside me at 'Erminie,' and I feel sure he felt
likewise. How handsome he is, or rather how essentially manly, with the
look of strength in his broad shoulders, and of honesty of purpose in
his fearless, blue eyes. He is iron-grey, and slightly bald, I noticed,
when he stooped to pick up my handkerchief, but his beard and moustache
are brown. He is decidedly dark; I wonder if Highland Scotch; for dark,
and true, and tender are the North. His name suits him. I like them both
for old association's sake, one being the maiden name of one whose
memory is sacred, the other, the Christian name of my loved dead. I
wonder what poor Charlie Cole would think of my having made his
acquaintance in this romantic fashion. I remember, he also had had
instantaneous photographs, as we laughingly called them, of a young lady
who had interested him."
At this moment Miss Crew, entering, in walking costume, said:
"I met the letter-carrier as I came in, Mrs. Gower, and here is your
share."
"Thank you. You look better for your walk; but did you walk?"
"Only from the Spadina Avenue car terminus, but I had some little
walking in my district, but the College Street Mission is worth
fatiguing oneself for. Oh, Mrs. Gower, have you heard how Mayor Howland
purposes raising building funds for the cottage in connection with the
Industrial Home at Mimico?"
"Yes, I read it in some newspaper, the Globe of yesterday, I think."
"Won't it be something to be proud of, if the children carry it out."
"Yes, and I believe they will; children are very much in earnest, when
the heart is touched; and now for our correspondence; take off your hat
and mantle here by the grate, though Gurney's furnace does keep us very
comfortable all over the house."
"Pardon my interrupting you, Mrs. Gower; but I am reading a letter from
Mrs. Dale, in which she says, to be sure and remind you to write her
some description of your yachting on the St. Lawrence; those English
friends of theirs would so much like to get some idea of the life, as
they purpose purchasing an island."
"Yes, I must do so; but I fear any poor words of mine, will fail in
doing justice to its many delights;" and on finishing reading her
letters, seating herself at her _escretoire_, she wrote as follows:
"The Islet-Gemmed St. Lawrence.
"DEAR MR. AND MRS. DALE,--It has never been my lot to read
anything descriptive of river-life, on our loveliest of
streams, that I have considered did justice to its varied
charms; so you may imagine how powerless I feel, in the task
you have assigned me; but when I tell you that that martyr to
_ennui_, Jack Halton, this summer owned to myself that he had,
at last, found something worth living for, you will therefore
not be surprised that I, loving nature as I do, should have
gone into raptures.
"In the first place, our steam-yacht, the _Ino_, was the
trimmest little craft, the daintiest little beauty on the
river; and we had the perfection of host and hostess, each in
their respective niche, leaving nothing to be desired. I told
them they must have had 'Aladdin's lamp' stowed away somewhere;
for we had but to clap our hands, and our will was done.
"Day after day, never tiring, ever with renewed zest we boarded
the _Ino_, to dream away the hours in the most ravishing bits
of scenery my eyes ever beheld. With hampers full of dainties
and substantials, we wandered in and about the islands;
sometimes meeting other idlers like ourselves, and pic-nicking
at some chosen spot; sometimes the guests at one or other of
our acquaintances having summer homes in this our Canadian
fairyland. Truly, if all the year were June, the world in woods
would roam; for our gay little _Ino_ was a spirit of the
waters, and though we had no spiritualists on board, still we
had table rappings on some good story by our witty host;
neither were we so spiritual as to despise the material, which
we proved as we sat to dinner; and such dinners, Ambrosia! Yea,
and for our goddesses; though with sunburnt faces we women did
not much resemble the latter, our men looking handsomer the
browner they grew; but as for dinner, we had from dishes to
tickle the palate of our club epicures to--hodge-podge, which
we relished.
"Yes, from morn till eve, and often late, late, in the white
moonlight, we lived an ideal life on our pet yacht, the _Ino_.
"One will sometimes say, in meteing out great praise to some
favored spot, that one would live and die there; but here, who
talks of dying? One would fain live forever; for, every moment
one lives, one breathes a new life; for on the luxuriously
appointed _Ino_, we gazed out from curtained windows, or from
under a canopied arch, while we reclined on softest of
cushioned seats, and literally drank in the 'Elixir of Life.'
The air of the pine groves as we passed, the air of the grandly
dark and dashing river, full of ozone, is the air to inflate
one's lungs with, and carry back with one to our crowded
cities, which seemed so far away in that land of beauty.
"Some delightful evenings, we would tread a measure on the
green sward, to music of flute and violin; for, had one or more
of our group not been innate musicians, the scene was enough to
inspire one, and so, in songs, merry laughter or sentiment, our
days passed as a dream.
"For we stem the shining river,
The river of the isles,
On our fairy yacht, the _Ino_,
With our love beside our side.
For I there met a sorcerer, who robbed me of my heart, and
whose spells I could not break until I fled from this scene of
enchantment. And again we board our trim yacht, and what varied
scenes of beauty met the eye, whenever and wherever we gazed.
Such lights, such shadows, such artist bits, such trees, such
rocks, such everything! Surely we were in fairyland, and not in
plain, practical Canada.
"On some of the islands are ideal summer homes; now we came
upon a fairy-like structure, in Italian villa style; now, upon
a palatial mansion; now, upon a camp all alive, and signalling
_Ino_ the fair.
"The only specks in my sun were, that the American islands were
made more beautiful by their owners than our own; and that
uneuphonious names had been given to some of these charming
islets. Fancy one 'Pitch Pine Point'--I failed to see the point
of christening it so.
"The rocks take most fantastic shapes in the shadowed
moonlight. By and under the rock-bound shore, I used to fancy I
saw nymphs dancing on the rippling waters, which was to them
music; and, dreaming on, as we lazily stemmed the tide, it all
came to me, that in days of yore, the youths from the shore,
coming to row and sport in the waves at eve, saw the
water-sprites, and fell in love; when the sea-gods, for
revenge, fell upon them, transforming them into some of the
most fantastic-shaped rocks we see; and, the sea-nymphs,
pitying the sons of men for their fatal love, prayed the gods
to transform themselves into trees, to grow into the clefts of
the rocks; and so protect their would-be lovers from old Sol's
fiery beams, and their wish was granted.
"But we invariably turned ere a bend in the river robbed it
from our sight, to take a last loving glance at the beauteous
Isle Manhattan, where we had been most hospitably entertained
by its charming American inmates. It is beautifully wooded, and
an elegant mansion thereon, with one of the most hospitable of
verandas, stretching long and wide, with many American rockers
and pillowed rattan sofas, on which we have reclined or sat
while partaking of iced claret and, for those who liked it,
champagne _carte blanche_, and where we had one of the most
perfect views from the commanding tower of the villa.
"A view that wants a Lett, an Imrie, or an Awde to sing of, a
Longfellow to immortalize--my pen is lifeless in describing its
beauty; a beauty that would ravish the soul of a poet, and send
an artist wild; a view which brought to my mind the remark of a
dear old Scotchman, whom a party of tourists came upon, lost in
admiration of the Falls of Niagara. On one of the party asking
him what he thought of the Falls, he said, 'Eh, man, I just
feel like takin' aff my bonnet til't.'
"In the far-stretching scene of loveliness here, in the heart
of the Islands, one should go to the Tower, at Manhattan alone,
leaving the merry, madding crowd on board the yacht, or on the
veranda; one should go alone, or in dual solitude, where a
clasp of the hand, or a look, is sympathy enough; for one
should carry with one one's fill of such a scene of perfect
beauty, to brighten darker days and drearier times."