with his keen axe, Hugh cut and chopped through the months while the snow covered the ground; and so resolutely did he work, that when the white mantle vanished from the earth before the warmth of the spring, the M'Canns had cleared several acres of their land; and in the Autumn of 1862 they gathered in their first produce—an abundant harvest of potatoes, oats, and buckwheat. A proud woman was Mrs. Hugh M'Cann, as she did the honours of her forest home to the settlers of 1862; and prouder still as she afforded hospitality and the shelter of her warm roof to many who had yet to raise a dwelling over their heads. I could well appreciate the brave and cheery nature of this humble Irishwoman, as the Bishop and I after a lengthened and somewhat laborious tour through the settlement sat before the well-replenished stove which had so often warmed the limbs of the wayfarer, and smiled its ruddy welcome to the heart of the exile; and I listened to Mrs. M'Cann while she chatted gaily to her guests, making light of trials and difficulties that would have daunted many a lord of creation. She laughed, as she told of her furniture being flung by a surly captain on the shore of the river; how she lost her temper 'with the fellow,' and did not recover it for ever so long; how tartly she replied, in a spirit not of the mildest theology, to the kindly-intentioned queries of a Free-will Baptist; how 'it was as good as any theaytre' to see Hugh and herself tramping after the lumbering oxen, and all their cherished property nodding and shaking on the jolting waggon; how Hugh spent a portion of his first Sunday—'after saying our prayers, Bishop, by all means'—in making the frame of the door, while she constructed the door 'with her own two hands;' how happy they felt as, the cold being effectually barred out, they sat down before their bright stove, and drank a rousing cup of tea; how, as time rolled on, and the forest receded before the resolute axe, and the fields grew in dimensions, and cattle lowed round
