coolness, or the horses in his team were more difficult to manage, I
cannot tell: the sleigh, as it hung poised upon the top of the log, was
overturned with a loud crash, and all my household goods and chattels were
scattered over the road. Alas, for my crockery and stone china! Scarcely
one article remained unbroken.

"Never fret about the china," said Moodie; "thank God, the man and the
horses are uninjured."

I should have felt more thankful had the crocks been spared too; for, like
most of my sex, I had a tender regard for china, and I knew that no fresh
supply could be obtained in this part of the world. Leaving his brother to
collect the scattered fragments, D____ proceeded on his journey. We left
the road, and were winding our way over a steep hill, covered with heaps
of brush and fallen timber, and as we reached the top, a light gleamed
cheerily from the windows of a log house, and the next moment we were at
my brother's door.

I thought my journey was at an end; but here I was doomed to fresh
disappointment. His wife was absent on a visit to her friends, and it had
been arranged that we were to stay with my sister, Mrs. T____, and her
husband. With all this I was unacquainted; and I was about to quit the
sleigh and seek the warmth of the fire when I was told that I had yet
further to go. Its cheerful glow was to shed no warmth on me, and, tired
as I was, I actually buried my face and wept upon the neck of a hound
which Moodie had given to Mr. S____, and which sprang up upon the sleigh
to lick my face and hands. This was my first halt in that weary
wilderness, where I endured so many bitter years of toil and sorrow. My
brother-in-law and his family had retired to rest, but they instantly rose
to receive the way-worn travellers; and I never enjoyed more heartily a