Halifax is, as you all know, the capital of Nova Scotia, which is one of the provinces of British North America, and thus is under the dominion of the Queen. It is just what I should imagine a real old English city to be—very odd and antiquated, and yet picturesquely beautiful, and altogether a most charming place in which to spend a summer. Never shall I forget the stroll I took alone the second morning after my arrival. The day was one of those rarely perfect ones in July. All nature seemed wrapped in a dreamy repose; the heat of the sun was tempered by the soft sea breezes blowing from the grand old ocean not many leagues away, whose roar sounded like the voice of many waters, soothing, restful, and sweet. It happened that my wanderings led me in to some of the older portions of the city where the houses are many of them two hundred years old. And such funny, queer old houses. They seemed, somehow, to have a slanting look to them; it may have been, however, that it was because the streets were so hilly, and such a contrast to our flat, level prairies. Right in the midst of the city, among the stores (shops they call them) and houses one comes suddenly upon the graveyards—some of them not now in use, but still left there. What interested me was the flat tombstones. When a little girl my father used to tell me of how the children would take their dolls to the cemetery and play upon and under the grave stones. Do I hear you exclaim, “What, play _under_ a grave stone!” I do not wonder, for it seemed a funny thing to me, but it was quite clear when I saw how the marble slabs were placed. Instead of standing in an upright position, as you have always seen them, they were laid flat and raised some distance from the ground (high enough for a child to crawl under comfortably) by means of little marble posts. I used often to roam through these cemeteries with a dear old gentleman who would tell me stories of the brave young sailor boys buried there, far away from their own loved English homes. Halifax is one of the most strongly fortified cities in America, and at every turn one meets the red coated soldiers in the streets—when they are not on duty. What would interest our boys would be to see a sham battle; the officers and soldiers all in uniform, eager and active as for a real encounter with the enemy.