We soon forgot our weary wanderings beside the bright fire that blazed
on the hearth of the log-house, in which we found S------ comfortably
domiciled with his wife.  To the lady I was duly introduced; and, in
spite of all remonstrances from the affectionate and careful mother,
three fair sleeping children were successively handed out of their cribs
to be shown me by the proud and delighted father.

Our welcome was given with that unaffected cordiality that is so grateful to the heart:  it was as sincere as it was kind.  All means were adopted to soften the roughness of our accommodation, which, if they lacked that elegance and convenience to which we had been accustomed in England, were not devoid of rustic comfort; at all events they were such as many settlers of the first respectability have been glad to content themselves with, and many have not been half so well lodged as we now are.

We may indeed consider ourselves fortunate in not being obliged to go at once into the rude shanty that I described to you as the only habitation on our land.  This test of our fortitude was kindly spared us by S------, who insisted on our remaining beneath his hospitable roof till such time as we should have put up a house on our own lot.  Here then we are for the present fixed, as the Canadians say; and if I miss many of the little comforts and luxuries of life, I enjoy excellent health and spirits, and am very happy in the society of those around me.

The children are already very fond of me.  They have discovered my passion for flowers, which they diligently search for among the stumps and along the lake shore.  I have begun collecting, and though the season is far advanced, my hortus siccus boasts of several elegant specimens of fern; the yellow Canadian violet, which blooms twice in the year, in the spring and fall, as the autumnal season is expressively termed; two sorts of Michaelmas daisies, as we call the shrubby asters, of which the varieties here are truly elegant; and a wreath of the festoon pine, a pretty evergreen with creeping stalks, that run along the ground three or four yards in length, sending up, at the distance of five or six inches, erect, stiff, green stems, resembling some of our heaths in the dark, shining, green, chaffy leaves.  The Americans ornament their chimney-glasses with garlands of this plant, mixed with the dried blossoms of the life-everlasting (the pretty white and yellow flowers we call love-everlasting):  this plant is also called festoon-pine.  In my rambles in the wood near the house I have discovered a trailing plant bearing a near resemblance to the cedar, which I consider has, with equal propriety, a claim to the name of ground or creeping cedar.

As much of the botany of these unsettled portions of the country are unknown to the naturalist, and the plants are quite nameless, I take the liberty of bestowing names upon them according to inclination or fancy.  But while I am writing about flowers I am forgetting that you will be more interested in hearing what steps we are taking on our land.