When I reached the city of Toronto, capital of the province of Ontario, I found that the Red River Expeditionary Force had already been mustered, previous to its start for the North-West.  Making my way to the quarters of the commander of the Expedition, I was greeted every now and again with a “You should have been here last week; every soul wants to get on the Expedition, and you hav’n’t a chance.  The whole thing is complete; we start to-morrow.”  Thus I encountered those few friends who on such occasions are as certain to offer their pithy condolences as your neighbour at the dinner-table when you are late is sure to tell you that the soup and fish were delicious.  At last I met the commander himself.

“My good fellow, there’s not a vacant berth for you,” he said; “I got your telegram, but the whole army in Canada wanted to get on the Expedition.”

“I think, sir, there is one berth still vacant,” I answered.

“What is it?”

“You will want to know what they are doing in Minnesota and along the flank of your march, and you have no one to tell you,” I said.

“You are right; we do want a man out there.  Look now, start for Montreal by first train to-morrow; by to night’s mail I will write to the general, recommending your appointment.  If you see him as soon as possible, it may yet be all right.”

I thanked him, said “Good-bye,” and in little more than twenty-four hours later found myself in Montreal, the commercial capital of Canada.

“Let me see,” said the general next morning, when I presented myself before him, “you sent a cable message from the South of Ireland last month, didn’t you? and you now want to get out to the West?  Well, we will require a man there, but the thing doesn’t rest with me; it will have to be referred to Ottawa; and meantime you can remain here, or with your regiment, pending the receipt of an answer.”

So I went back to my regiment to wait.

Spring breaks late over the province of Quebec-that portion of America known to our fathers as Lower Canada, and of old to the subjects of the Grand Monarque as the kingdom of New France.  But when the young trees begin to open their leafy lids after the long sleep of winter, they do it quickly.  The snow is not all gone before the maple-trees are all green; the maple, that most beautiful of trees!  Well has Canada made the symbol of her new nationality that tree whose green gives the spring its earliest freshness, whose autumn dying tints are richer than the clouds, sunset, whose life-stream is sweeter than honey, and whose branches are drowsy through the long summer with the scent and the hum of bee and flower!  Still the long line of the Canadas admits of a varied spring.  When the trees are green at Lake St. Clair, they are scarcely budding at Kingston, they are leafless at Montreal, and Quebec is white with snow.  Even between Montreal and Quebec, a short night’s steaming, there exists a difference