world of ours, we have hardly room for the petty distinctions and
pettier strifes of larger communities. We are all well acquainted with
each other, and know each other's business and concerns as well as our
own. There is no concealment of affairs. This, however, saves a vast
deal of trouble--people are much easier where there is no false
appearance to be kept up; and in New Brunswick there is less of "behind
the scenes" than in most places. Many a bright eye glances under Helen's
shadowy hat: and, see, one gallant axe-man lingers behind the others--he
pauses now by the old birch tree--I know he is her lover, and in charity
to their young hearts I must allow her to turn, while we proceed onward.

The fire-flies now gleam through the air like living diamonds, and the
evening star has opened her golden eye in the rich deep azure of the
sky. Our home stands before us, with its white walls thrown in strong
relief by the dark woods behind it: and here, on this adjoining lot,
lives our neighbour who is ill--he who to-day has had the "barn
raising." It would be but friendly to call and enquire for him. The
house is one of the best description of log buildings. The ground floor
contains two large apartments and a spacious porch, which extends along
the front, has the dairy in one end and a workshop in the other, that
most useful adjunct to a New Brunswick dwelling, where the settlers are
often their own blacksmiths and carpenters, as well as splint pounders
and shingle weavers. The walls are raised high enough to make the
chamber sufficiently lofty, and the roof is neatly shingled. As we
enter, an air of that undefinable English ideality--comfort--seems
diffused, as it were, in the atmosphere of the place. There is a look of
retirement about the beds, which stand in dim recesses of the inner
apartment, with their old but well-cared-for chintz hangings, differing
from the free uncurtained openness of the blue nose settler's couch; a
publicity of sleeping arrangements being common all over America, and