Christmas, we had a fall of eight or ten inches, which made pretty good
going: the sleighs were, of course, in immediate requisition.

A family sleigh is made to carry from six to ten persons; the more
stylish ones from four to six; a cutter, or single sleigh, two. These
are all for pleasure, but every farmer is obliged to have a lumber-
sleigh for general use. A much larger load can be drawn on runners in
winter than on wheels in summer. Sleighing is, without doubt, the most
delightful mode of travelling you can possibly conceive, but it takes
several falls of snow to make the sleighing good. All the inequalities
must be filled up and levelled, but the snow soon packs solid by the
constant friction of the sleigh-runner. The horses are each provided
with a ring of bells, the sound of which is not unmusical; and I am
assured is delightful indeed to the ears of the anxious wife, watching
for the return of her husband from a winter journey. Some years ago,
when the country was unsettled, the females of the family had some
cause for fear, since the absence of the father, son, or husband, was
not always followed by his safe return; and the snow-storm, or the
wolves, were thought of with alarm, till the music of the sleigh-bells
announced the safety of the beloved absentee.

In no country on the face of the earth does the torch of wedded love
beam brighter than in Canada, where the husband always finds "the wife
dearer than the bride." I have seen many an accomplished and beautiful
English girl, "forgetting with her father's house," the amusements of a
fashionable life, to realize with a half-pay officer or "younger
brother," the purer, holier pleasures of domestic love in this country,
where a numerous issue, the fruits of their union, are considered a
blessing and a source of wealth, instead of bringing with them, as in
the old country, an increase of care.