I do not know that I have much more to tell that would interest you. The oxen gave us a great start in clearing the land, and that season we did more than all we had done before. We paid the seignior regularly, and once we were a little ahead, it was wonderful how well we got on. Then you must bear in mind, that, as my boys grew up, we were strong in help, and our place improved quickly compared with the generality of those beside us. That fall we got another cow and two sheep, so that we never afterwards wanted for milk or yarn. It was a hard struggle, with many ups and downs, much slavish work and pinching and paring, but in course of time we had all we could reasonably wish and were content. I was long concerned about the schooling of my children, of whom only two had got any before leaving Scotland. We could not help ourselves until the fourth year of our coming, when a man, lame of a leg, came round and told us he was a schoolmaster. The neighbors consulted and one of them gave a log stable he was not using, which was fitted up as a schoolhouse, and the man set to work. He could teach his scholars little, and tried to cover up his deficiencies by threshing them unmercifully. He was got rid of and another hired, who was more qualified but was given to drink. They were a miserable lot of teachers in those days, being either lazy or drunken fellows who took to keeping school without considering whether they were qualified. In course of time we had a church at Ormstown, Mr Colquhoun, a proud Highlander, being the first minister. When we came, there was only one (old Jones) living where Ormstown stands, now it is a large village, with buildings the like of which nobody could have expected to see. There has been a wonderful improvement all over, and, when I first saw it, to have foretold the country would become what it now is, nobody would have believed. That the people have improved correspondingly I do not think. The money, scraped together by the hard work of their fathers, I have seen squandered by lads who despised the plow, and the upsetting ways of many families are pitiful to see. Folk in the old times lived far more simply and happily. You want to know what became of Braxton. He died 14 years after we came here. It was in the winter and I thought he had caught cold while skidding logs in the bush. Any way, inflammation set in, and he died within a week of his first complaining. We mourned sorely for him. A more patient or truer soul never breathed, and to the example he set my boys, who have all done well, I set down much of the credit. We counted up his share of the property, and, adding £20 to it, sent it to his sister in England, who was his only relative. I may say all my old acquaintances are gone, for there are few now on the river who were there when I came, and I wait patiently to follow them, living happily, as you see, with Ailie and her children until the Lord is pleased to call me. JEANIE MORISON. CHAPTER I.