e's mind expanded, it was found to
be a difficult matter to carry on her education in a country in most
parts of which books were not to be had and schoolmasters did not exist.
When the difficulty first presented itself, they talked of sending
their little one to England to finish her education; but being unable to
bring themselves to part with her, they resolved to have a choice
selection of books sent out to them. Jessie's mother was a clever,
accomplished, and lady-like woman, and decidedly pious, so that the
little flower, which was indeed born to blush unseen, grew up to be a
gentle, affectionate woman--one who was a lady in all her thoughts and
actions, yet had never seen polite society, save that of her father and
mother. In process of time Jessie became Mrs Stanley, and the mother
of a little girl whose voice was, at the time her father entered,
ringing cheerfully in an adjoining room. Mrs Stanley's nature was an
earnest one, and she no sooner observed that her husband was worried
about something, than she instantly dropped the light tone in which she
at first addressed him.

"And what perplexes you now, dear George?" she said, laying down her
work and looking up in his face with that straightforward, earnest gaze
that in days of yore had set the stout backwoodsman's heart on fire, and
still kept it in a perennial blaze.

"Nothing very serious," he replied with a smile; "only these fellows
have taken it into their stupid heads that Ungava is worse than the land
beyond the Styx; and so, after the tough battle that I had with you this
morning in order to prevail on you to remain here for a winter without
me, I've had to fight another battle with them in order to get them to
go on this expedition."

"Have you been victorious?" inquired Mrs Stanley.

"No, not yet."

"Do you really mean to say they are _afraid_ to go? Has Prince refused?
are Francois, Gaspard, and Massan cowards?" she inquired, her eye
kindling with indignation.

"Nay, my wife, not so. These men are not cowards; nevertheless they
don't feel inclined to go; and as for Dick Prince, he has been off
hunting for a week, and I don't expect him back for three weeks at
least, by which time we shall be off."

Mrs Stanley sighed, as if she felt the utter helplessness of woman in
such affairs.

"Why, Jessie, that's what you used to say to me when you were at a loss
for words in the days of our courtship," said Stanley, smiling.

"Ah, George, li