"Ah, dear nurse, hare-bells! did you find real hare-bells, such as grow on
the bonny Highland hills among the heather? I wish papa would let me go to
the Upper Province, to see the beaver meadows, and gather the dear
blue-bells."

"My father, Lady Mary, wept when I brought him a handful of these
flowers, for he said it reminded him of his Highland home. I have found
these pretty bells growing on the wild hills about Rice Lake, near the
water, as well as near the beaver meadows."

"Do the beavers sleep in the winter time, nurse?"

"They do not lie torpid, as racoons do, though they may sleep a good
deal; but as they lay up a great store of provisions for the winter, of
course they must awake sometimes to eat it."

Lady Mary thought so too.

"In the spring, when the long warm days return, they quit their winter
retreat, and separate in pairs, living in holes in the banks of lakes and
rivers, and do not unite again till the approach of the cold calls them
together to prepare for winter, as I told you."

"Who calls them all to build their winter houses?" asked the child.

"The providence of God; usually called instinct, that guides these wild
animals; doubtless it is the law of nature given to them by God.

"There is a great resemblance in the habits of the musk-rat and the