r this filial
obedience, for the relations of the French-Canadian bishop or priest
with his flock are in all ways commendable. She is fond of innocent
gaiety and not averse to adornment of person when this does not conflict
with her love of economy; but when, as sometimes happens, the bishop
issues a pastoral in which he commands the relinquishment of certain
modes of amusement, such as the waltz, or reprehends certain named
frivolities of costume, she abandons the forbidden thing with a quiet
obedience which may be unmodern in spirit, but which is pleasant to see
in its cheerful submission to an authority which she considers as the
highest that can be evoked and one which it were sin to despise or
disobey.

The wife of the _habitant_ has also a virtue which is not in high esteem
among her sisters of a higher culture, but which is still held in
respect among the more primitive communities: she is highly prolific.
Families of fifteen children are common among the French-Canadians, and
the mother of but a paltry half-dozen feels that she has not done her
duty to humanity and her country. Early marriages are the rule among the
_habitants_, being wisely encouraged by the priests in the interests of
morality. It is a sociable race, and the women vie with each other in
promoting the innocent gaiety which makes up a large part of their
lives. Because of this love for social merriment as well as of their
religious feeling, the fetes of the Church are celebrated in French
Canada as nowhere else in northern America, and the industry of the
women is tempered by the frequent holidays which call for enjoyment.
Their dress is as a rule simple and, in the further outlying
communities, which are chiefly referred to here, frequently entirely of
homespun material, the fruit of their own labors.

One of the chief traits of the French-Canadians, male and female, is
their love of music; yet to the cause of music the women of French
Canada have furnished but one noted contribution, Madame Albani, the
famous opera singer, who owns birth as one of this people, though hardly
as a true _habitante_, in the more limited sense of the word. But music
is the greatest passion of the French-Canadians, and the violin holds an
honored place in all their communities. It is in the simple pleasure of
listening to the music of the violin, or of dancing to its merry
strains, that the woman of the habitants finds her chief respite from
the toils of her daily