Down the River to the Sea

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by Agnes Maule Machar

CHAPTER I—NIAGARA.

The brilliant sunshine of a July day lighted up the great cataract and the rich verdure of the surrounding landscape, bringing out all the wonderful variety of hue in the surging mass of falling water, the snowy clouds that perpetually veiled and unveiled it, the iridescence that floated elusively amid their ever-shifting billows, and the deep emerald of the islands that nestled so confidingly among the foaming, seething rapids that swept down the slope above, in order to take the fatal leap. The Clifton House veranda had its usual complement of lounging groups of guests, most of them so absorbed in gossip, flirting, or the last sensational novel, that they scarcely seemed to notice the grandeur of the scene they had come so far to enjoy. Of a very different class of visitors was May Thorburn, who sat silently in a vacant corner of the wide veranda, gazing at the ceaseless rush of the Horse-shoe Fall, in a speechless ecstasy of delight. The brown-haired, brown-eyed, rather pale girl, who sat so absorbed in the wonderful grandeur of the scene before her, was not quite sure whether she was the same May Thorburn, who, only a few days before, had been all engrossed in the usual endless round of home duties, sweeping, dusting, or stitching away at the family mending (and how much mending that family needed!), and trying to squeeze in, between these homely avocations, a little of the poetry and music in which her soul delighted. And now, here she was, in the midst of Nature’s grandest poetry and music, realizing what had been the day-dream of years! And all this wonderful happiness had come about through the thoughtful kindness of her cousin, Kate Severne, in inviting her to share the delights of a trip all the way from Niagara to the Saguenay—names that had so long stood in her mind as equivalents for the greatest enjoyment that any tourist could hope for—at least outside of Mont Blanc.

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