and brighten the heavy countenance. The birds greeted cheerily the acquaintance who came every day, and whose only fault was that it never remained long enough; the tiny blossoms beneath the trees began to peer forth at it; a million daisies turned their yellow eyes toward it, and with each new attention bestowed it blushed more and more. It sent the politest of zephyrs to beg the river to remove its veil; it lavished its own charms upon the river until the stream seemed to have emerged suddenly from the fountain of youth; the most subtle and delicious perfumes diffused themselves every where, and the Cook breathed them in with a feeling that he was absorbing Nature's own sweet self. Then there floated through the air an odor more pronounced and less fragrant, and the Cook discovered that a large fold of one of his baggy trouser legs had succumbed to the attentions of the neighboring fire, and disappeared like the baseless fabric of a vision and left but a rag behind. Just then the Purser, who at home was a philosopher as well as an artist, emerged yawning from his couch and proceeded to the river and his ablutions. "Purser," said the Cook; "you believe in the conservation of force; tell me now, I pray you, in what potent form the lost fabric of my trouser leg will reappear?" "In a tailor's bill," replied the Purser, and the Cook, a wiser and a sadder man, sauntered off to fill the expeditionary coffee-pot. "The squadron," remarked the Commodore, as he drained his second pint of coffee and laid aside his emptied plate, "will now prepare itself for the reception of a plain but startling statement. I call upon you all to bear witness that I did not in the least discourage the little ebullition on the part of the Cook which led him to run the rapids at the fort through the humiliating device of getting his boat carried up stream, so that he could float down. I wish now to inform the fleet that real rapids are before us. (Sensation, the squadron well knowing that naught in the nature of rapids intervened between them and the St. Lawrence.) You all know, by report at least, that the river a few miles below is crossed by a railway bridge. This railway traverses a rough section of country and shortly touches the head-waters of a wild river where they break from one of the largest of our mountain lakes. Over this road I have secured transportation for the fleet, and in two days at the latest I hope that the "Becky Sharp" will show the expedition the way down the "Horse Race" at Lake End. The stream to which I refer falls into a navigable river which in its turn joins the St. Lawrence within easy reach of transportation to New York. I have prudently kept this contemplated change of plan to myself until I could be reasonably assured of its feasibility. The letters received at the fort gave me the desired information, and I now submit my proposition to the fleet." "We don't want to reach any where," said the Purser. "Wherever we are is paradise."