lled
supporne-cake, which is fried in slices, and eaten with maple-syrup,
were among the novelties of our breakfast-fare.

I was admiring a breed of very fine fowls in the poultry-yard one
morning, when my friend smiled and said, "I do not know if you will
think I came honestly by them."

"I am sure you did not acquire them by dishonest means," I replied,
laughing; "I will vouch for your principles in that respect."

"Well," replied my hostess, "they were neither given me, nor sold to me,
and I did not steal them. I found the original stock in the following
manner. An old black hen most unexpectedly made her appearance one
spring morning at our door; we hailed the stranger with surprise and
delight; for we could not muster a single domestic fowl among our little
colony at that time. We never rightly knew by what means the hen came
into our possession, but suppose some emigrant's family going up the
country must have lost or left her; she laid ten eggs, and hatched
chickens from them; from this little brood we raised a stock, and soon
supplied all our neighbours with fowls. We prize the breed, not only on
account of its fine size, but from the singular, and, as we thought,
providential, manner in which we obtained it."

I was much interested in the slight sketch given by the pastor one
evening, as we all assembled round the blazing log-fire, that was piled
half-way up the chimney, which reared its stone fabric so as to form
deep recesses at either side of its abutments.

Alluding to his first settlement, he observed, "it was a desolate
wilderness of gloomy and unbroken forest-trees when we first pitched our
tent here: at that time an axe had not been laid to the root of a tree,
nor a fire, save by the wandering Indians, kindled in these woods.

"I can now point out the identical spot where my wife and little ones
ate their first meal, and raised their feeble voices in thankfulness to
that Almighty and merciful Being who had preserved them through the
perils of the deep, and brought them in safety to this vast solitude.

"We were a little flock wandering in a great wilderness, under the
special protection of our mighty Shepherd.

"I have heard you, my dear young lady," he said, addressing the
companion of my visit, "talk of the hardships of the bush; but, let me
tell you, you know but little of its privations compared with those that
came hither some years ago.

"Ask these, my elder children and my wife, what we