Florence gazed till the shades of evening obscured the magnificent scene, and then, clinging to her father's arm, returned to the hotel. On gaining her room, she tossed off her bonnet and shawl and seized her journal.
"Are you not going to tea?" asked her father.
"No," answered she, almost sharply. "I cannot so suddenly descend to the actual, or come in so quick contact with the grossness of earth after the god-like sublimity I have been contemplating."
Her father called her a little enthusiast, and walked away. Left to herself she drew forth her journal.
"Eventful day!" she wrote. "I have stood among the mists of Niagara. Fain would I voice the tumult flood of emotions that rushed over my soul as I gazed on its wondrous sublimity: but language is impotent, and I am weak,—weaker than usual; I think from reaction of my overstrained powers.
"I could lie down and weep like a tired child. The tremendous roar of the mighty waters is in my ear as I write. O, Niagara, Niagara! what henceforth will be to me the brightest scene our country can afford—for I have looked on thee, and what is left me now?"
She closed her book, and, stepping out on the piazza, leaned her arms over the balustrade, and stood with her gaze riveted on the boiling cataracts, now flashing like sheets of burnished silver in the soft moonlight. While she was thus occupied a young lady approached and accosted her.
"You are just arrived at the Falls, I fancy," said she, with a pleasant smile.
"I arrived to-day," answered Florence, politely.
"You do not know me," remarked the young lady; "but I think I have seen you before."