Page:The Englishwoman in America (IA englishwomaninam00birdrich).pdf/307

 the boat was so full that many people had to sleep on sofas, no one would share a state-room with me.

We were delayed by fog, and did not reach Montreal till one in the morning. I found Montreal as warm and damp as it had been cold and bracing on my first visit; but the air was not warmer than the welcome which I received. Kind and tempting was the invitation to pro- long my stay at the See House; enticing was the prospect offered me of a visit to a seigneurie on the Ottawa; and it was with very great reluctance that, after a sojourn of only one day, I left this abode of refinement and hospitality, and the valued friends who had received me with so much kindness, for a tedious journey to New York. I left the See House at five o'clock on the last day of October, so ill that I could scarcely speak or stand. It was pitch-dark, and the rain was pouring in torrents. The high wind blew out the lamp which was held at the door; an unpropitious commencement of a journey. Something was wrong with the harness; the uncouth vehicle was nearly upset backwards; the steam ferryboat was the height of gloom, heated to a stifling extent, and full of people with oil-skin coats and dripping umbrellas. We crossed the rushing St. Lawrence just as the yellow gas-lights of Montreal were struggling with the pale, murky dawn of an autumn morning, and reached the cars on the other side before it was light enough to see objects distinctly. Here the servant who had been kindly sent with me left me, and the few hours which were to elapse before I should join my friends seemed to present insurmountable difficulties. The people in the cars were French, the names of the