es as she could tell.

It was a lovely sunny day in the flowery month of June; Canada had not
only doffed that "dazzling white robe" mentioned in the songs of her
Jacobite emigrants, but had assumed the beauties of her loveliest
season, the last week in May and the first three of June being parallel
to the English May, full of buds and flowers and fair promise of
ripening fruits. The high sloping hills surrounding the fertile vale
of Cold Springs were clothed with the blossoms of the gorgeous scarlet
enchroma, or painted-cup; the large pure white blossoms of the lily-like
trillium; the delicate and fragile lilac geranium, whose graceful
flowers woo the hand of the flower-gatherer only to fade almost within
his grasp; the golden cyprepedium, or mocassin flower, so singular, so
lovely in its colour and formation, waved heavily its yellow blossoms as
the breeze shook the stems; and there, mingling with a thousand various
floral beauties, the azure lupine claimed its place, shedding almost a
heavenly tint upon the earth. Thousands of roses were blooming on the
more level ground, sending forth their rich fragrance, mixed with the
delicate scent of the feathery ceanothus, (New Jersey tea.) The vivid
greenness of the young leaves of the forest, the tender tint of the
springing corn, were contrasted with the deep dark fringe of waving
pines on the hills, and the yet darker shade of the spruce and balsams
on the borders of the creeks, for so our Canadian forest rills are
universally termed. The bright glancing wings of the summer red-bird,
the crimson-headed woodpecker, the gay blue-bird, and noisy but splendid
plumed jay, might be seen among the branches; the air was filled with
beauteous sights and soft murmuring melodies. Under the shade of the
luxuriant hop-vines, that covered the rustic porch in front of the
little dwelling, the light step of Catharine Maxwell might be heard
mixed with the drowsy whirring of the big wheel, as she passed to and
fro guiding the thread of yarn in its course: and now she sang snatches
of old mountain songs, such as she had learned from her father; and now,
with livelier air, hummed some gay French tune to the household melody
of her spinning wheel, as she advanced and retreated with her thread,
unconscious of the laughing black eye that was watching her movements
from among the embowering foliage that shielded her from the morning
sun.

"Come, ma belle cousine," for so Louis delighted to call