My new friend and kind hostess was a being of quite a different stamp; and though I believe she was far from thinking that she had found in Canada a terrestrial paradise, and the want of servants and the difficulty of educating her family as she wished, were subjects of great annoyance to her; yet these and other evils she had met with a cheerful spirit. Here, amid these forest wilds, she had recently given birth to a lovely baby, the tenth, or indeed I believe the twelfth, of a flock of manly boys and blooming girls. Her eldest daughter mean time, a fair and elegant girl, was acquiring, at the age of fifteen, qualities and habits which might well make ample amends for the possession of mere accomplishments. She acted as manager in chief, and glided about in her household avocations with a serene and quiet grace which was quite charming. OXFORD. The road, after leaving Woodstock, pursued the course of the winding Thames. We passed by the house of Colonel Light, in a situation of superlative natural beauty on a rising ground above the river. A lawn, tolerably cleared, sloped down to the margin, while the opposite shore rose clothed in varied woods, which had been managed with great taste, and a feeling for the picturesque not common here; but the Colonel being himself an accomplished artist accounts for this. We also passed Beechville, a small but beautiful village, round which the soil is reckoned very fine and fertile; a number of most respectable settlers have recently bought land and erected houses here. The next place we came to was Oxford, or rather Ingersol, where we stopped to dine and rest previous to plunging into an extensive forest called the Pine Woods. Oxford is a little village, presenting the usual saw-mill, grocery-store and tavern, with a dozen shanties congregated on the bank of the stream, which is here rapid and confined by high banks. Two back-woodsmen were in deep consultation over a wagon which had broken down in the midst of that very forest road we were about to traverse, and which they described as most execrable--in some parts even dangerous. As it was necessary to gird up my strength for the undertaking, I laid in a good dinner, consisting of slices of dried venison, broiled, hot cakes of Indian corn, eggs, butter, and a bowl of milk. Of this good fare I partook in company with the two back-woodsmen, who appeared to me perfect specimens of their class--tall and strong, and bronzed and brawny, and shaggy and unshaven--very much like two bears set on their hind legs; rude, but not uncivil, and spare of speech, as men who had lived long at a distance from their kind. They were too busy, however, and so was I, to feel or express any mutual curiosity. Time was valuable, appetite urgent; so we discussed our venison steaks in silence, and after dinner I proceeded.