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A Chance Acquaintance.

BY W. D. HOWELLS.

BOSTON:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY

Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co.

1873.

University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., Cambridge.

CONTENTS

I. UP THE SAGUENAY.
II. MRS. ELLISON'S LITTLE MANEUVRE.
III. ON THE WAY BACK TO QUEBEC.
IV. MR. ARBUTON'S INSPIRATION.
V. MR. ARBUTON MAKES HIMSELF AGREEABLE.
VI. A LETTER OF KITTY'S.
VII. LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM.
VIII. NEXT MORNING.
IX. MR. ARBUTON'S INFATUATION.
X. MR. ARBUTON SPEAKS.
XI. KITTY ANSWERS.
XII. THE PICNIC AT CHATEAU-BIGOT.
XIII. ORDEAL.
XIV. AFTERWARDS.

A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE.

I.

UP THE SAGUENAY.

On the forward promenade of the Saguenay boat which had been advertisedto leave Quebec at seven o'clock on Tuesday morning, Miss Kitty Ellisonsat tranquilly expectant of the joys which its departure should bring,and tolerantly patient of its delay; for if all the Saguenay had notbeen in promise, she would have thought it the greatest happiness justto have that prospect of the St. Lawrence and Quebec. The sun shone witha warm yellow light on the Upper Town, with its girdle of gray wall, andon the red flag that drowsed above the citadel, and was a friendlylustre on the tinned roofs of the Lower Town; while away off to thesouth and east and west wandered the purple hills and the farmlit plainsin such dewy shadow and effulgence as would have been enough to make theheaviest heart glad. Near at hand the river was busy with every kind ofcraft, and in the distance was mysterious with silvery vapors; littlebreaths of haze, like an ethereal colorless flame, exhaled from itssurface, and it all glowed with a lovely inner radiance. In the middledistance a black ship was heaving anchor and setting sail, and the voiceof the seamen came soft and sad and yet wildly hopeful to the dreamy earof the young girl, whose soul at once went round the world before theship, and then made haste back again to the promenade of the Saguenayboat. She sat leaning forward a little with her hands fallen into herlap, letting her unmastered thoughts play as they would in memories andhopes around the consciousness that she was the happiest girl in theworld, and blest beyond desire or desert. To have left home as she haddone, equipped for a single day at Niagara, and then to have comeadventurously on, by grace of her cousin's wardrobe, as it were, toMontreal and Quebec; to be now going up the Saguenay, and finally to bedestined to return home by way of Boston and New York;—this was morethan any one human being had a right to; and, as she had written home tothe girls, she felt that her privileges ought to be divided up among allthe people of Eriecreek. She was very grateful to Colonel Ellison andFanny for affording her these advantages; but they being now out ofsight in pursuit of state-rooms, she was not thinking of them in