I was glad to find that she had made her mark in Canadian literature. An intelligent Canadian critic, Mr. J. E. Collins, whose acquaintance I was privileged to make—as well as that of his friend, Mr. Charles Robins, a poet of whom Canada may well be proud—writes of Mrs. Moodie: ‘So perfect a picture is Mrs. Moodie’s book of the struggles, the hopes, the dark days, and the sun-spots of that obscure life that fell to her lot in the forest depths, that its whisperings form a delightful music to the memory. The style is limpid as a running brook, picturesque, and abounding with touches that show a keen insight into character, and an accurate observation of external things. There is no padding or fustian in the book, and no word is squandered, Mrs. Moodie regarding the mission of language to be to convey thought, not to put on a useless parade.’ Mrs. Moodie has been living in Canada now fifty years, and loves to talk of the old country, especially of the people with whom she associated when, as Susannah Strickland, she used to stay in London with Pringle, the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, whose beautiful poem, ‘Afar in the desert I love to ride,’ is still a favourite with the English public. But she has no wish to come back to England—her family are all well settled in Canada. She lives with one of her sons, and her daughter, Mrs. Chamberlain, of Ottawa, has won deserved fame by her beautiful illustrations of Canadian flowers and lichens. English readers who may remember Mrs. Moodie as one of the gifted Strickland sisters will be glad to learn that she is regarded as one of the pioneers of Canadian literature, and although born near the beginning of the present century, possesses a mental vigour and active memory rare in one so aged. She told me anecdotes of myself when a boy that I had quite forgotten, and retains in old age the enthusiasm for which she was remarkable when young. Some of her ghost-stories were capital. For instance, one night, when her sister Agnes was lying sick, in the old hall at Reydon, Suffolk, and was being nursed by her sister Jane, there came to them a tall, stately figure in white, with long garments trailing behind her. Of course, Agnes and her sister were very much frightened at the apparition, which stood at the door, pointed her finger at Agnes, hissed at her, and then disappeared. Other stories followed, equally interesting, in which Mrs. Moodie, it was evident, firmly believed.