ing their many privations, enjoyed uninterrupted health
through the winter, and before the arrival of spring they already felt a
growing interest in their new home. Mrs. Ainslie regarded the labours of
the workmen with much attention during the winter, while they felled the
trees which had covered nearly ten acres of their farm. As each tree
fell to the ground it opened a wider space in the forest and afforded a
broader view of the blue sky. A stream of water, which in many places
would have been termed a river, but which there only bore the name of
Hazel-Brook, flowed near their dwelling, and as the spring advanced, the
belt of forest which concealed it from view having been felled, she
gained a view of its sparkling waters when the warm showers and genial
rays of the sun loosened them from their icy fetters; and she often
afterward remarked that the view of those clear waters was the first
thing which tended to reconcile her to a home in the forest. With the
coming of spring their "life in the woods," began in earnest. When the
earth was relieved of its snowy mantle, the fallen trunks of the trees,
with piles of brush-wood were scattered in every direction about their
dwelling. But the fallow was burned as soon as it was considered
sufficiently dry, the blackened logs were piled in heaps, and the ground
was prepared for its first crop of grain. The green blades soon sprang
up and covered the ground, where a short time before was only to be seen
the unsightly fallow or the remains of the partially consumed logs.

It was a long time before Mr. and Mrs. Ainslie became reconciled to the
change in their circumstances, when they exchanged the comforts and
conveniences of their home beyond the sea, for the log cabin in the
wilderness. Cut off as they were from the privileges of society to which
they had been accustomed from childhood, they felt keenly the want of a
place of worship, with each returning Sabbath; and next to this, the
want of a school for their two boys; for taken as a people the Scotch
are intelligent; and we rarely meet with a Scotchman, even among the
poorer classes, who has not obtained a tolerable education. And the
careful parents felt much anxiety when they beheld their children
debarred from the advantages of education; but to remedy the want as
much as lay in their power, they devoted the greater part of what little
leisure time they could command to the instruction of their boys. They
had been regular