I asked when the letter
would reach Toronto, and the man answered, "It ought to do so to-morrow,
but it is uncertain when it will." Papa asked our guide from the hotel
where he was "raised," (papa is getting quite a Yankee), to which he
replied, "in Ireland." I slept, wonderful to say, through part of our
journey here, in one of those most uncomfortable cars, but woke up as
we approached the station. The night was splendid (we had seen the comet
at Rochester), and the moon was so bright as to make it almost as light
as day; you may imagine our excitement when we saw, in the distance,
rising above the trees, a light cloud of mist from the Falls of
Niagara.?
_Clifton House, September 18th._--Papa got into a melancholy mood at the
International Hotel yesterday evening, on account of the hotel being an
enormous one, and like a huge barrack; half of it we suspect is shut up,
for they gave us small room _au second_, though they acknowledged they
made up four hundred beds, and had only one hundred guests in the house.
The dining room was about one hundred and fifty feet long, and the hotel
was half in darkness from the lateness of the hour, and had no view of
the Falls; so papa got more and more miserable, and I could only comfort
him by reminding him we could be off to this hotel early in the morning;
for as it is the fashion to try first one side for the view, and then
the other, there was no offence in going from the United States to our
own English possessions.
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