His letters to Locker state that the voyage agreed with him better than he had expected; while from the St.Lawrence he wrote to his father, "Health, that greatest of blessings, is what I never truly enjoyed until I saw _Fair_ Canada.

The change it has wrought, I am convinced, is truly wonderful." This happy result had been due, in part at least, to surroundings that told favorably upon his sensitive nervous system, and not to the bracing climate alone.

He had been actively occupied afloat, and had fallen desperately in love with a fair Canadian, around whom his ardent imagination threw that glamour of exaggerated charm in which he saw all who were dear to him, except his wife.

Her he seems from the first to have looked upon with affection indeed, but without rapture or illusion.

The Canadian affair came near ending in an imprudent offer, from which he was with difficulty deterred by a cool-headed friend.