Thus our idle fancies shaped themselves that day,
Mid the bluffs, and headlands, and the islets gray,
As we travel’d southward in our gallant ship,
Floating, drifting, dreaming down the Mississippi.
Mackay.

The gentleman whom Mrs. Lester had called to see, and who was out driving at the time, came to the boat to see her, and promised her many lovely drives if she would prolong her visit. There were many things to say of old friends and scenes, and he sat talking in the saloon till Norman ran in to say that the boat had left the wharf. Good-by was hurriedly said, and Mr. —— hastened to the captain to ask him to put him ashore, as he was not prepared for a voyage down the Mississippi.

“That is the way,” said the captain; 116“people do not mind their own business, and then I have to attend to it.”

He good-humoredly, however, gave the order to arrest the course of the proud steamer, and direct its prow to the opposite shore. It was the work of some minutes, for they are obliged, in stopping at a landing going down stream, to turn the bow up the current.

“Well, captain,” said Mr. ——, as he sprang on shore, “I promise you to go down twice in the Grey Eagle for this.”

There were some curious caves on the eastern bank of the river, walled up and with windows in them. In one of these the owner keeps his vegetables, as it is perfectly protected from the frost.

Going down the river was the going up reversed, and yet the same scenery became new, seen under different aspects. The broad sunlight that now lay on land and water was not so favorable to artistic effect as the softened light and the 117lengthening shadows of the previous evening.

After dinner the Rev. Mr. Maynard asked Mrs. Lester to go into the bow of the boat, where there was a cool breeze, most welcome in that sultry summer day, and a fine view of the scenery. Norman would not go; he was tired, and preferred reading in the saloon, where his mother left him. Nearly an hour passed away, and as they were, approaching the St. Croix River, Mrs. Lester said: “I must show Norman this beautiful sheet of water; he did not see it when we went up.”

Through the long saloon she went, opened her state-room door, he was not there; out on the guards, not there. She asked the stewardess, who had not seen him since dinner. Breathless with agitation, Mrs. Lester rushed upstairs to the hurricane-deck, meeting Mr. Maynard, who had come up the opposite side to 118look in the pilot-house; the boy was not there! where could he be?

Mr. Maynard had looked in the steerage, the barber’s shop; there was no corner of the boat unvisited, and the terrible dread that he had fallen overboard was settling down on his mother’s heart as she sank down on a chair in the saloon, when the stewardess exclaimed, as she opened the door of the state-room, “Here he is, asleep in the upper berth!” And there he was, fast asleep, with two life-preservers, which he had tied around him, and which his mother had mistaken for a gray comforter.

Norman, awakened, looked down with some wonder at the group at the door. It was very hot; the sun’s fervent rays were shining upon the state-room, and the life-preservers rather added to the heat, so that Norman had had a pretty warm time. But he had made up by a sound sleep for the late sitting up of the night 119before, and the early rising at St. Anthony, and he was now quite ready to enjoy the afternoon.

Mr. Maynard, greatly relieved that Norman was found, pointed out his house on the high bank of the river at Prescott, and then said good-by, as he was goin............