"The carriage turned into a narrow, steep path, overhung with lofty woods, and after laboring up it with considerable difficulty, and at the risk of breaking our necks, it brought us at length to a rocky upland clearing, partially covered with a second growth of timber, and surrounded on all sides by the dark forest. 'I guess,' quoth our Yankee driver, 'that at the bottom of this 'ere swell, you'll find yourself _to hum_;' and plunging into a short path cut through the wood, he pointed to a miserable hut, at the bottom of a steep descent, and cracking his whip, exclaimed, 'It's a smart location that. I wish you Britishers may enjoy it.' I gazed upon the place in perfect dismay, for I had never seen such a shed called a house before. 'You must be mistaken; that is not a house, but a cattle-shed, or pig-sty.' The man turned his knowing keen eye upon me, and smiled, half humorously, half maliciously, as he said, 'You were raised in the old country, I guess; you have much to learn, and more perhaps than you'll like to know, before the winter is over.'" The prophet of evil spoke truly. It was a winter of painful instruction for the inexperienced young woman, and her not very prudent husband. We might fill columns with a bare list of their vexations and disasters. Amongst the former, not the least arose from the borrowing propensities of their neighbors. They had 'located' in a bad neighborhood, in the vicinity of a number of low Yankee squatters, "ignorant as savages, without their courtesy and kindness." These people walked unceremoniously at all hours into their wretched dwelling, to criticise their proceedings, make impertinent remarks, and to borrow--or rather to beg or steal, for what they borrowed they rarely returned. The most extraordinary loans were daily solicited or demanded; and Mrs. Moodie, strange and timid in her new home, and amongst, these semi-barbarians--her husband, too, being much away at the farm--for some time dared not refuse to acquiesce in their impudent extortions. Here is a specimen of the style of these miscalled 'borrowings.' On the first day of their arrival, whilst they were yet toiling to exclude wind and rain from the crazy hovel, which their baggage and goods filled nearly to the roof, a young Yankee 'lady' squeezed herself into the crowded room: