The first settlement of Canada, in which term is of course included Acadia, or, as it is now known, Nova Scotia, was touched by a strange romance. The Sieur de Roberval was on his voyage to join the great Jacques Cartier and with him to found a colony, when he discovered that his niece, Marguerite de Roberval, loved, more fondly than was consistent with the Sieur's conceptions of right, a young cavalier of his company. A lonely island, known as the Isle of Demons, was sighted soon after this discovery was made; and Roberval sternly condemned his niece to perpetual imprisonment on this barren rock. Her lover jumped overboard and swam after his beloved; and together they lived, forgotten of men, on the island, thus founding the first Canadian home. A child was born to them, but it died early, and Marguerite's lover, whose name has not come down to us, soon followed his infant. Marguerite with her own hands hollowed the graves of those she loved, and then she lived on, more lonely than even Alexander Selkirk, on this island which was for her full of terrors, real and imagined; the nature of the latter may be guessed from the name bestowed upon the place. She was clad in skins and learned to use the guns with which, in strange mercy, she had been provided by her uncle; and it was not until more than two years had passed that she was rescued by some Maloine fishermen and found her way to her native land. Here she lived in seclusion until her death, which did not come until she had passed the number of years allotted to man. So the first Canadian home was founded in romance, and, better yet, in true love; and Marguerite de Roberval, faithful wife in fact if not by title, deserves to be held in honor among Canadian traditions as the tutelary saint of the Canadian household. Nor was there lack of romance in the further story of the women of Canada, while love and faith are also to be found prominent in that story.