There Was A Very Pale And Nervous-Looking
Young Lady Lying On A Sofa Opposite, Staring Fixedly At Me.
Suddenly she
got up, and asked me if I were very ill?
I replied that I had been so.
"She's had the cholera, poor thing!" the stewardess unfortunately
observed. "The cholera!" she said, with an affrighted look; and, hastily
putting on her bonnet, vanished from the cabin, and never came down again.
She had left Quebec because of the cholera, having previously made
inquiries as to whether any one had died of it in the John Munn; and
now, being brought, as she fancied, into contact with it, her imagination
was so strongly affected that she was soon taken seriously ill, and brandy
and laudanum were in requisition. So great was the fear of contagion,
that, though 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 prolong 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.
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