I wish nature had not given me such a quick perception of the ridiculous--such a perverse inclination to laugh in the wrong place; for though one cannot help deriving from it a wicked enjoyment, it is a very troublesome gift, and very difficult to conceal. So I turned my face resolutely from contemplating the doings of the long-ringletted lady, and entered into conversation with an old gentleman from the States--a _genuine_ Yankee, whom I found a very agreeable and intelligent companion, willing to exchange, with manly, independent courtesy, the treasures of his own mind with another; and I listened to his account of American schools and public institutions with great interest. His party consisted of a young and very delicate looking lady, and a smart active little boy of five years of age. These I concluded were his daughter and grandson, from the striking likeness that existed between the child and the old man. The lady, he said, was in bad health--the boy was hearty and wide-awake. After dinner the company separated; some to visit objects of interest in the neighbourhood, others to the saloon and the balcony. I preferred a seat in the latter; and ensconcing myself in the depths of a large comfortable rocking chair, which was placed fronting the Falls, I gave up my whole heart and soul to the contemplation of their glorious beauty. I was roused from a state almost bordering on idolatry by a lady remarking to another, who was standing beside her, "that she considered the Falls a great humbug; that there was more fuss made about them than they deserved; that she was satisfied with having seen them once; and that she never wished to see them again." I was not the least surprised, on turning my head, to behold in the speaker the long-ringletted lady. A gentleman to whom I told these remarks laughed heartily.--"That reminds me of a miller's wife who came from Black Rock, near Buffalo, last summer, to see the Falls. After standing here, and looking at them for some minutes, she drawled through her nose--'Well, I declare, is that all? And have I come eighteen miles to look at you? I might ha' spared myself the expense and trouble; my husband's mill-dam is as good a sight,--only it's not just as _high_.'" This lady would certainly have echoed the sublime sentiment expressed by our friend the poet,-- "Oh, what a glorious place for washing sheep Niagara would be!" In the evening my husband hired a cab, and we drove to see the Upper Suspension Bridge. The road our driver took was very narrow, and close to the edge of the frightful precipice that forms at this place the bank of the river, which runs more than two hundred feet below.