The long covered wagon stopped at the door of their new home just as the sun was going down.

There was but one house in sight of their little cabin, and that was, if anything, still smaller than their own; nothing was to be seen on all sides but wide prairie land, and as the little Winifred cast her eye around, she exclaimed: 

“O! mother, what shall we do here?  I am sure I shall not like to stay; there is no one here.”

“You forget that God is here, my child,” said the mother; and she commenced assisting Biddy in setting up some few articles that would make them comfortable through the night, while her husband, with Pat, attended to the out-door affairs.

“Och, and sure, mem,” said Biddy, as she put her emerald head in at the door of the cabin; “faith, and it’s not yesilf, mem, that’s going to rest in the same room with the likes of me.”

“Yes, Biddy, I see no other way; we shall have to get used to western life.  I think, by partitioning off one corner, here, with blankets, we shall get along very well; and then it will be right handy for you in the morning to get the breakfast; you will not have the trouble of coming down stairs.”

“Yes, mem, yese makes everything so asy like! but it’s such strange times for yese, mem!” and Biddy went flying about the room, her face glowing with excitement, pulling at every uneven log in the house, fully persuaded there must be some other apartment, if no more than a closet; and as she caught at a loose board, which only separated them from the open air, she looked through, delighted that she had discovered another room, and that her mistress would not now be obliged to share the same apartment with herself; for as the remembrance of certain devotional exercises to be gone through, over each bead in her rosary, came to her, she had her doubts if the “blissed St. Pathrick,” (who, for reasons best known to herself, was her favorite saint), would condescend to listen to petitions offered from such near proximity to the unbelieving Protestants; not that she thought her mistress was not a most excellent woman, but she was a Protestant, and often had she called upon the blissid St. Patrick, to “bring her dear lady over to the thrue faith.”  As she bent down to look into the opening, congratulating herself upon the discovery, a large cat darted through, full into her face, and ran with speed out at the door.

“Och, murther! and may the good saints presarve us alive!  What will become of us at all?” and in her fright she went headlong into a pile of milk-pans, her unwieldy arms making certain involuntary revolutions, causing the air to resound with a chorus, which might have done credit to the first callithumpian in the land.

“Ho! what is all this?” cried Mr. Santon, who had stepped in at the commencement of the prelude; “what are you looking for under those pans, Biddy?”