To those persons who have been brought up in the old country, and accustomed from infancy to adhere to the conventional rules of society, the mixed society must, for a long time, prove very distasteful. Yet this very freedom, which is so repugnant to all their preconceived notions and prejudices, is by no means so unpleasant as strangers would be led to imagine. A certain mixture of the common and the real, of the absurd and the ridiculous, gives a zest to the cold, tame decencies, to be found in more exclusive and refined circles. Human passions and feelings are exhibited with more fidelity, and you see men and women as they really are. And many kind, good, and noble traits are to be found among those classes, whom at home we regard as our inferiors. The lady and gentleman in Canada are as distinctly marked as elsewhere. There is no mistaking the superiority that mental cultivation bestows; and their mingling in public with their less gifted neighbours, rather adds than takes from their claims to hold the first place. I consider the state of society in a more healthy condition than at home; and people, when they go out for pleasure here, seem to enjoy themselves much more. The harmony that reigns among the members of a Canadian family is truly delightful. They are not a quarrelsome people in their own homes. No contradicting or disputing, or hateful rivalry, is to be seen between Canadian brothers and sisters. They cling together through good and ill report, like the bundle of sticks in the fable; and I have seldom found a real Canadian ashamed of owning a poor relation. This to me is a beautiful feature in the Canadian character. Perhaps the perfect equality on which children stand in a family, the superior claim of eldership, so much upheld at home, never being enforced, is one great cause of this domestic union of kindred hearts. Most of the pretence, and affected airs of importance, occasionally met with in Canada, are not the genuine produce of the soil, but importations from the mother country; and, as sure as you hear any one boasting of the rank and consequence they possessed at home, you may be certain that it was quite the reverse. An old Dutch lady, after listening very attentively to a young Irishwoman's account of the grandeur of her father's family at home, said rather drily to the self-exalted damsel,-- "Goodness me, child! if you were so well off, what brought you to a poor country like this? I am sure you had been much wiser had you staid to hum--" "Yes. But my papa heard such fine commendations of the country, that he sold his estate to come out." "To pay his debts, perhaps," said the provoking old woman. "Ah, no, ma'am," she replied, very innocently, "he never paid them. He was told that it was a very fine climate, and he came for the good of our health." "Why, my dear, you look as if you never had had a day's sickness in your life."