We embark to-morrow, and hope to see you in less than a month, if this fine wind continues.
I am just come from Montmorenci, where I have been paying my devotions to the tutelary deities of the place for the last time.
I had only Fitzgerald with me; we visited every grotto on the lovely banks, where we dined; kissed every flower, raised a votive altar on the little island, poured a libation of wine to the river goddess; and, in short, did every thing which it became good heathens to do.
We stayed till day-light began to decline, which, with the idea of the last time, threw round us a certain melancholy solemnity; a solemnity which
“Deepen’d the murmur of the falling floods,
And breath’d a browner horror on the woods.”
I have twenty things to do, and but a moment to do them in. Adieu!
I am called down; it is to Madame Des Roches: she is very obliging to come thus far to see me.
12th.
We go on board at one; Madame Des Roches goes down with us as far as her estate, where her boat is to fetch her on shore. She has made me a present of a pair of extreme pretty bracelets; has sent your brother an elegant sword-knot, and Emily a very beautiful cross of diamonds.
I don’t believe she would be sorry if we were to run away with her to England: I protest I am half inclined; it is pity such a woman should be hid all her life in the woods of Canada: besides, one might convert her you know; and, on a religious principle, a little deviation from rules is allowable.