o that good habit of family worship was commenced, inaugurating the
shanty that very night. Andy Callaghan sat by and listened.

'Throth, but they're fine words,' said he. 'I wouldn't believe any one
now, that that book is bad to listen to.'

'And at home you'd run away from the sight of it. How's that, Andy?'
asked Mr. Wynn.

'It's aisy explained, sir,' replied the servant, looking droll. 'Don't
you see, I haven't his riverence at me elbow here, to turn me into a
goat if I did anything contrary, or to toss me into purgatory the minit
the breath is out of my poor body.'

Thousands of Andy's countrymen find the same relief to their consciences
as soon as they tread the free soil of Canada West.

Truly a primitive settlement was the 'Corner.' The dusk forest closed
about its half dozen huts threateningly, as an army round a handful of
invincibles. Stumps were everywhere that trees were not; one log-cabin
was erected upon four, as it had been, legs ready to walk away with the
edifice. 'Uncle Zack's' little store was the most important building in
the place, next to the sawmill on the stream.

'The situation must be unhealthy,' said Robert; 'here's marsh under my
very feet. Why, there's a far better site for a town plot on my land,
Holt.'

'Ay, and a better water privilege too. Let me see what your energy does
towards developing its resources, Robert.'

They discovered one source of the storekeeper's prosperity in the
enormous price he exacted for the commonest articles. Necessity alone
could have driven Arthur to pay what he did for the wretched little
window of four panes to light the shanty. And Uncle Zack had as much to
say about the expense and difficulty of getting goods to a locality so
remote, and as much sympathizing with his purchaser because of the
exorbitant cost, as if he were a philanthropist, seeking solely the
convenience of his neighbours by his sales.

'That fellow's a master of soft sawder when he chooses: but did you see
how he clutched the hard cash after all? My opinion is, he don't often
get paid in the circulating medium,' said Arthur.

'Of that you may be sure,' rejoined Sam Holt; 'currency here lies more
in potash or flour, just as they have salt in Abyssinia. Society seems
to be rather mixed at the "Corner." Yonder's a French Canadian, and
here's an Indian.'

No glorious red man, attired in savage finery of paint and feathers;
no sculptor's ideal form, or novelist's heroic countenance