As time wore on, and contact with the outer world became easier and more frequent, the refinements of advancing civilization found their way gradually into the country, and changed the amusements as well as the long-established habits of the people. An isolated community like that which stretched along the frontier of our Province, cut off from the older and more advanced stages of society, or holding but brief and irregular communication with it, could not be expected to keep up with the march of either social or intellectual improvement; and although the modern may turn up his nose as he looks back, and affect contempt at the amusements which fell across our paths like gleams of sunlight at the break of day, and call them rude and indelicate, he must not forget that we were not hedged about by the conventionalities, nor were we slaves to the caprice of fashion. We were free sons and daughters of an upright, sturdy parentage, with pure and honest hearts throbbing under rough exteriors. The girls who did not blush at a hearty kiss from our lips were as pure as the snow. They became ornaments in higher and brighter circles of society, and mothers, the savour of whose virtues and maternal affection rise before our memory like a perpetual incense. I am quite well aware of the fact that a large portion of the religious world is opposed to dancing, nor in this recital of country life as it then existed do I wish to be considered an advocate of this amusement. I joined in the sport then with as much eagerness and delight as one could do. I learned to step off on the light fantastic toe, as many another Canadian boy has done, on the barn floor, where, with the doors shut, I went sliding up and down, through the middle, balancing to the pitch- fork, turning round the old fanning-mill, then double-shuffling and closing with a profound bow to the splint broom in the corner. These were the kind of schools in which our accomplishments were learned; and, whether dancing be right or wrong, it is certain the inclination of the young to indulge in it is about as universal as the taint of sin.