st night they rested beneath the lowly roof of their forest home. I
could not, were I desirous of so doing, give a detailed account of the
trials and hardships they endured during the first few years of their
residence in the bush; but they doubtless experienced their share of the
privations and discouragements which fell to the lot of the first
settlers of a new section of country. The first winter they passed in
their new home was one of unusual severity for even the rigorous climate
of Eastern Canada, and poor Mrs. Ainslie often during that winter
regretted the willingness with which she bade adieu to her early home,
to take up her abode in the dreary wilderness. They found the winter
season very trying indeed, living as they did two miles from any
neighbour; and the only road to the dwelling of a neighbour was a
foot-track through the blazed trees, and the road, such as it was, was
too seldom trodden during the deep snows of winter, to render the
foot-marks discernible for any length of time. Their stores had all to
be purchased at the nearest village, which was distant some seven miles,
and Mr. Ainslie often found it very difficult to make his way through
the deep snows which blocked up the roads, and to endure the biting
frost and piercing winds on his journeys to and from the village. In
after years when they had learned to feel a deep interest in the growth
of the settlement, they often looked back with a smile to the
"home-sickness" which oppressed their hearts, while struggling with the
first hardships of life in the bush. Mr. Ainslie and his family,
notwithstanding 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
afterwards remarked that the v