al country,
that "pleasant land of France." They are but inhabitants, not citizens
in truth of the land over which floats the banner of England; they are
French at heart as in origin.

So we can still find in Canada an individual type of womanhood, though
to do so we must go somewhat far afield. Even so, the type is not of
pronounced peculiarity; it touches and even blends with other types of
the Latin countries of Europe and meets at certain points even the lines
of our own Teutonic culture. But this latter meeting is brought about by
circumstances rather than inherent tendency and is not racial. It is
indeed a remnant of the old conditions of pioneer life, which imposes
upon Latin as well as Teuton certain fixed and imperative needs, to be
met only by equally fixed methods.

If we go into the French-Canadian villages, where alone we can find an
individual womanhood in the Dominion, we shall find conditions that do
not exist in exactly similar form elsewhere, and which have been brought
about by racial modification of accepted circumstances. The woman of the
habitants is in many respects primitive in the sense of the primitive
culture of America while still in its infancy of Caucasian settlement.
It is true that with the growth of towns and the development of the
railway systems there is constantly coming change in the conditions of
the habitants, and that it is becoming more and more needful to extend
our pilgrimage to the remoter quarters of the country if we would find
the more primitive conditions; but they still exist. Some of these
enduring customs are peculiarly connected with womanhood. The use of the
loom, for example, is still known in some of the far-away villages of
the French-Canadians, and in those villages little is worn that is not
the product of home toil. It may be that this is the only quarter of the
western hemisphere where the hand loom is not a thing of the past; but
here it exists, and with it as its natural accompaniment some of the
more old-fashioned traits of womanhood. The wife of the _habitant_ is
industrious, thrifty, cleanly, and simple in ideas and manners. She is
economical to a degree that is rarely found among the Latin races, and
she has other virtues that are not common among those of like racial
origin. She is moral and religious; indeed, in the latter quality she
may be excessive in one way, being entirely under the dominion of her
spiritual pastor. But then she has good reason fo