"By this time I was sufficiently tired of a moving life; like the rolling stone of the proverb, I had gathered no fog--'_movebam, sed nil promovebam_.' I was very happy, therefore, when Mr Syme proposed my remaining at least some time with him in the capacity mentioned. Montreal, as everybody knows, is situated upon an island in the St Lawrence, and few places could be more advantageous for trade, or more picturesque in appearance. In the centre of the island there rises a beautiful eminence, still covered with trees of the primeval American forests; and towards the eastern skies lies the town itself, upper and lower, adorned with public buildings, and presenting, as you approach it, a very prepossessing aspect. Mr Syme had a warehouse, at a place called Chine, about eight miles up, and immediately upon the river. Here the furs were shipped for Europe, and Britain in particular, and here it was my duty to remain, except on Sundays, when I constantly dined with my kind relative. Mr Syme had an only daughter, two sons having died, and the mother likewise, whilst being delivered of the last. This daughter was now a young woman of nineteen, and sufficiently handsome for matrimony, considering that she was to inherit her father's wealth and business, which was itself a mine of gain. Her father, who in many respects was a kind-hearted and a prudent man, was as obstinate as an old oak-trunk when he took it into his head to be so. Most people have some weak side or other--and this was his. He had determined, from the time when Samuel Horseman, the rich merchant (the richest, it was supposed, in the island), had rocked his Nancy in the cradle, and had suffered himself to be scorned with the child, that Nancy should one day or other be Mrs Horseman; and that thus, by the union of their families and their fortunes, there should not be a firm in Montreal that would once be spoken of in the same day with Horseman, Syme, & Co. This idea had grown with the growth of the child, and had strengthened with her strength--it was never twenty-four hours out of his head. But, one dreadful afternoon, Horseman arrived from Quebec with a little pretty French milliner, whom he had married. This was death to Syme's plans and prospects, and so he set immediately about cutting Horseman, and looking out for some other advantageous way of disposing of his _article_, which had now seen some fourteen summers. But before he could settle upon any particular individual, he was relieved from his disappointment, and restored to his intercourse with Horseman, by a gallant serjeant, who claimed Mrs Horseman as his lawful and married wife; in fact, there were several claimants; but one was as good as a hundred to Horseman, who by this time was heartily tired of his partner, and would have willingly seen her attempting a voyage of discovery over the Falls of Niagara. Syme soon redoubled his diligence, and gave his daughter to understand