from his immemorial ceremonies
and intense conservatism, we may reasonably infer that many of
them have been handed down from father to son, unchanged, from
the prehistoric past to the present day; a past contemporary,
perhaps, with the mastodon, but certainly far back in the mists of
antiquity. The importance of rescuing them from oblivion is plain
enough, and therefore the untimely death of Miss Johnson, who was
evidently turning with congenital fitness to the task, is doubly to
be regretted. For as Mr. Bernard McEnvoy well says in his preface
to her "Vancouver Legends," she "has linked the vivid present with
the immemorial past.... In the imaginative power that she has
brought to these semi-historical Sagas, and in the liquid flow
of her rhythmical prose she has shown herself to be a literary
worker of whom we may well be proud."

It is believed to be the general wish of Miss Johnson's friends
that some tribute of a national and permanent character should be
paid to her memory; not indeed to preserve it--her own works will
do that--but as a visible mark of public esteem. In this regard,
what could be better than a bronze statue of life-size, with such
accompanying symbols as would naturally suggest themselves to a
competent artist? Vancouver, in which she spent her latter years,
the city she loved, and in which she died, is its proper home; and,
as to its site, the spot in Stanley Park where she wished her ashes
to be laid is surely, of all places, the most appropriate.

But whatever shape, in the opinion of her friends, the memorial
should take, it is important, in any case, that it should be worthy
of her genius, and a fitting memento of her services to Canadian
letters.

Fort Steele, B.C., September, 1913.

My Mother

The Story of a Life of Unusual Experiences

[Author's Note.--This is the story of my mother's life, every
incident of which she related to me herself. I have neither
exaggerated nor curtailed a single circumstance in relating this
story. I have supplied nothing through imagination, nor have I
heightened the coloring of her unusual experiences. Had I done so
I could not possibly feel as sure of her approval as I now do, for
she is as near to me to-day as she was before she left me to join
her husband, my beloved father, whose feet have long since wandered
to the "Happy Hunting Grounds" of my dear Red Ancestors.]

PART I.

It was a very lonely little girl that stood on the deck of a