er the front door, and hollyhocks by the
front gate. Three or four women, and as many barelegged girls, have come
out to look at the procession, and we lounge towards the group.

"It had a winder in the top of it, and silver handles," says one.

"Well, I declare; and you could 'a looked right in?"

"If I'd been a mind to."

"Who has died?" I ask.

"It's old woman Larue; she lived on Gilead Hill, mostly alone. It's
better for her."

"Had she any friends?"

"One darter. They're takin' her over Eden way, to bury her where she
come from."

"Was she a good woman?" The traveler is naturally curious to know what
sort of people die in Nova Scotia.

"Well, good enough. Both her husbands is dead."

The gossips continued talking of the burying. Poor old woman Larue! It
was mournful enough to encounter you for the only time in this world in
this plight, and to have this glimpse of your wretched life on lonesome
Gilead Hill. What pleasure, I wonder, had she in her life, and what
pleasure have any of these hard-favored women in this doleful region? It
is pitiful to think of it. Doubtless, however, the region isn't doleful,
and the sentimental traveler would not have felt it so if he had not
encountered this funereal flitting.

But the horses are in. We mount to our places; the big doors swing open.

"Stand away," cries the driver.

The hostler lets go Kitty's bridle, the horses plunge forward, and we
are off at a gallop, taking the opposite direction from that pursued by
old woman Larue.

This last stage is eleven miles, through a pleasanter country, and we
make it in a trifle over an hour, going at an exhilarating gait, that
raises our spirits out of the Marshy Hope level. The perfection of
travel is ten miles an hour, on top of a stagecoach; it is greater speed
than forty by rail. It nurses one's pride to sit aloft, and rattle past
the farmhouses, and give our dust to the cringing foot tramps. There is
something royal in the swaying of the coach body, and an excitement in
the patter of the horses' hoofs. And what an honor it must be to guide
such a machine through a region of rustic admiration!

The sun has set when we come thundering down into the pretty Catholic
village of Antigonish,--the most home-like place we have seen on the
island. The twin stone towers of the unfinished cathedral loom up large
in the fading light, and the bishop's palace on the hill--the home of
the Bishop of Arichat--appears to be an im