n. In
status and conditions they occupy a place about midway between the woman
of the Indian tribes and her of the lower phases of our own
civilization.

Southward now to the land of the mixed blood, where the two ancient
enemies, France and England, have joined in a race that owes allegiance
to the latter but retains many of the characteristics of the former. To
write the history of Canadian women is largely to speak of individuals,
since there has been but little alteration or development of conditions
of a social nature. Yet some may be noted.

The first settlement of Canada, in which term is of course included
Acadia, or, as it is now known, Nova Scotia, was touched by a strange
romance. The Sieur de Roberval was on his voyage to join the great
Jacques Cartier and with him to found a colony, when he discovered that
his niece, Marguerite de Roberval, loved, more fondly than was
consistent with the Sieur's conceptions of right, a young cavalier of
his company. A lonely island, known as the Isle of Demons, was sighted
soon after this discovery was made; and Roberval sternly condemned his
niece to perpetual imprisonment on this barren rock. Her lover jumped
overboard and swam after his beloved; and together they lived, forgotten
of men, on the island, thus founding the first Canadian home. A child
was born to them, but it died early, and Marguerite's lover, whose name
has not come down to us, soon followed his infant. Marguerite with her
own hands hollowed the graves of those she loved, and then she lived on,
more lonely than even Alexander Selkirk, on this island which was for
her full of terrors, real and imagined; the nature of the latter may be
guessed from the name bestowed upon the place. She was clad in skins and
learned to use the guns with which, in strange mercy, she had been
provided by her uncle; and it was not until more than two years had
passed that she was rescued by some Maloine fishermen and found her way
to her native land. Here she lived in seclusion until her death, which
did not come until she had passed the number of years allotted to man.

So the first Canadian home was founded in romance, and, better yet, in
true love; and Marguerite de Roberval, faithful wife in fact if not by
title, deserves to be held in honor among Canadian traditions as the
tutelary saint of the Canadian household. Nor was there lack of romance
in the further story of the women of Canada, while love and faith are
also to