"I started from my pillow-- The moon was riding high, The wind scarce heav'd a billow Beneath that cloudless sky. I look'd from earth to heaven, And bless'd the tranquil beam; My trembling heart had striven With the tempest of a dream." CHAPTER XVIII Goat Island "Adown Niagara's giant steep, The foaming breakers crowding leap, With wild tumultuous roar; The mighty din ascends on high, In deafening thunder to the sky, And shakes the rocky shore." S.M. The lady with the ringlets was absent with her party from the tea-table; I was not sorry to learn that she was gone. I had conceived a prejudice against her from the remark I heard her make about the Falls. Her gustativeness predominated so largely over her ideality, that she reminded me of a young lady who, after describing to me a supper of which by her own account she had largely partaken, said, with a candour almost shocking in its simplicity-- "To tell you the plain truth, my dear Mrs. M---, my art (she was English, and cockney, and dreadfully mangled the letter _h_ whenever it stumbled into a speech) is in my _stomach_." The cup of excellent tea was most refreshing after the fatigues of the day; and, while enjoying it, I got into an agreeable chat with several pleasant people, but we were all strangers even in name to each other. The night was misty and intensely dark, without moon or stars. How I longed for one glimpse of the former, to shed if only a wandering gleam upon the Falls! The awful music of their continuous roar filled the heavens, and jarred the windows of the building with the tremulous motion we feel on board a steam-boat. And then I amused myself with picturing them, during one of our desolating thunderstorms, leaping into existence out of the dense darkness, when revealed by the broad red flashes of lightning; and I wished that my limited means would allow me to remain long enough in their vicinity, to see them under every change of season and weather. But it was not to be; and after peering long and anxiously into the dark night, I retreated to an unoccupied sofa in a distant part of the saloon, to watch and listen to all that was passing around me. Two young American ladies, not of a highly educated class, were engaged in a lively conversation with two dashing English officers, who, for their own amusement, were practising upon their credulity, and flattering their national prejudices with the most depreciating remarks on England and the English people. "I am English," cried number one; "but I am no great admirer of her people and institutions. The Americans beat them hollow." "All the world think so but themselves," said the younger lady; "they are such a vain, arrogant set!" "Decidedly so. The men are bad enough, but the women,--I dare say you have heard them called handsome?"