THE RAPIDS.

MIDNIGHT on board a steam-boat, a full moon, and a soft panorama of the shores of St. Lawrence gliding by like a vision! I thus assume the dramatic prerogative of introducing my readers at once to the scene of my story; and, with the same time-saving privilege I introduce my dramatis persona, a gentleman and lady, promenading the deck, with the slow step so natural on a summer's night when your company is agreeable.

The lady leaned familiarly on the arm of her companion as they walked to and fro, sometimes

looking at the moon, and sometimes at her pretty feet, as they stole out, one after the other, into the moonlight. She was a tall, queenly person, somewhat embonpoint, but extremely graceful. Her eye was of a dark blue, shaded with lashes of remarkable length, and her features, though irregular, were expressive of great vivacity, and more than ordinary talent. She wore her hair, which was of a deep chestnut, in the Madonna style, simply parted; and her dress, throughout, had the chaste elegance of good taste-the tournure of fashion, without its extravagance.

Her companion was a tall, well-formed young man, very handsome, with a frank and prepossessing expression of countenance, and the fine freedom of step and air which characterise the well-bred gentleman. He was dressed fashionably, but plainly, and wore whiskers, in compliance with the prevailing mania. His tone was one of rare depth and melody; and as he bent slightly

and gracefully to the lady's ear, its low, rich tenderness had the irresistible fascination for which the human voice is sometimes so remarkable.

It was a beautiful night. The light lay sleeping on the St. Lawrence like a white mist. The boat, on whose deck our acquaintances were promenading, was threading the serpentine channel of the "Thousand Isles," more like winding through a wilderness, than following the passage of a great river.

The many thousand islands clustered in this part of the St. Lawrence seem to realise the mad girl's dream when she visited the stars, and found them

- only green islands sown thick in the sky."

Nothing can be more like fairy-land than sailing among them on a summer's evening. They vary in size, from a quarter of a mile in circumference, to a spot just large enough for one solitary tree,

and are at different distances, from a bowshot to a gallant leap from each other. The universal formation is a rock of horizontal stratum, and the river, though spread into a lake by innumerable divisions, is almost embowered by the luxuriant vegetation which covers them. There is everywhere sufficient depth for the boat to run directly alongside, and with the rapidity and quietness of her motion, and the near neighbourhood of the trees, which may almost be touched, the illusion of aerial carriage over land, is, at first, almost perfect.

The passage through the more intricate parts of the channel is, if possible, still more beautiful: you shoot into narrow passes where you could spring on shore on either side, catching, as you advance, hasty views to the right and left, through long vistas of islands; or, running round a projecting point of rock or woodland, open into an apparent lake, and darting rapidly across, seem

running right on shore as you enter a narrow strait in pursuit of the covert channel.

It is the finest ground in the world for the "magic of moonlight." The water is clear, and, on the night we speak of, was a perfect mirror. Every star was repeated. The foliage of the islands was softened into distinctness, and they lay in the water, with their well-defined shadows hanging darkly beneath them, as distinctly as clouds in the sky, and apparently as moveable.

In more terrestrial company than the lady Viola's, our hero might have fancied himself in the regions of upper air; but as he leant over the tafferel, and listened to the sweetest voice that ever melted into moonlight, and watched the shadows of the dipping trees as the approach of the boat broke them one by one, he would have thought twice before he had said that he was sailing on a fresh-water river, in the good steamboat Queenston.