Next day, travelling along the river’s banks, was an uninterrupted pleasure.  We closed our drive in the afternoon at the house of an English gentleman, who has gratified, as few men do, the common wish to pass the evening of an active day amid the quiet influences of country life.  He showed us a bookcase filled with books about this country; these he had collected for years, and become so familiar with the localities that, on coming here at last, he sought and found, at once, the very spot he wanted, and where he is as content as he hoped to be, thus realizing Wordsworth’s description of the wise man, who “sees what he foresaw.”

A wood surrounds the house, through which paths are cut in every direction.  It is, for this new country, a large and handsome dwelling; but round it are its barns and farm yard, with cattle and poultry.  These, however, in the framework of wood, have a very picturesque and pleasing effect.  There is that mixture of culture and rudeness in the aspect of things as gives a feeling of freedom, not of confusion.

I wish it were possible to give some idea of this scene as viewed by the earliest freshness of dewy dawn.  This habitation of man seemed like a nest in the grass, so thoroughly were the buildings and all the objects of human care harmonized with what was natural.  The tall trees bent and whispered all around, as if to hail with sheltering love the men who had come to dwell among them.

The young ladies were musicians, and spoke French fluently, having been educated in a convent.  Here in the prairie, they had learned to take care of the milk-room, and kill the rattlesnakes that assailed their poultry yard.  Beneath the shade of heavy curtains you looked out from the high and large windows to see Norwegian peasants at work in their national dress.  In the wood grew, not only the flowers I had before seen, and wealth of tall, wild roses, but the splendid blue spiderwort, that ornament of our gardens.  Beautiful children strayed there, who were soon to leave these civilized regions for some really wild and western place, a post in the buffalo country.  Their no less beautiful mother was of Welsh descent, and the eldest child bore the name of Gwynthleon.  Perhaps there she will meet with some young descendants of Madoc, to be her friends; at any rate, her looks may retain that sweet, wild beauty, that is soon made to vanish from eyes which look too much on shops and streets, and the vulgarities of city “parties.”

Next day we crossed the river.  We ladies crossed on a little foot-bridge, from which we could look down the stream, and see the wagon pass over at the ford.  A black thunder cloud was coming up.  The sky and waters heavy with expectation.  The motion of the wagon, with its white cover, and the laboring horses, gave just the due interest to the picture, because it seemed as if they would not have time to cross before the storm came on.  However, they did get across, and we were a mile or two on