appeared to be nothing but a wharf with a railway train on it, and a few shanty buildings, a part of them devoted to the sale of whiskey and to cheap lodgings.  This landing, however, is called Point du Chene, and the village of Shediac is two or three miles distant from it; we had a pleasant glimpse of it from the car windows, and saw nothing in its situation to hinder its growth.  The country about it is perfectly level, and stripped of its forests.  At Painsec Junction we waited for the train from Halifax, and immediately found ourselves in the whirl of intercolonial travel.  Why people should travel here, or why they should be excited about it, we could not see; we could not overcome a feeling of the unreality of the whole thing; but yet we humbly knew that we had no right to be otherwise than awed by the extraordinary intercolonial railway enterprise and by the new life which it is infusing into the Provinces.  We are free to say, however, that nothing can be less interesting than the line of this road until it strikes the Kennebeckasis River, when the traveler will be called upon to admire the Sussex Valley and a very fair farming region, which he would like to praise if it were not for exciting the jealousy of the “Garden of Nova Scotia.”  The whole land is in fact a garden, but differing somewhat from the Isle of Wight.

In all travel, however, people are more interesting than land, and so it was at this time.  As twilight shut down upon the valley of the Kennebeckasis, we heard the strident voice of pa going on with the Grecian catechism.  Pa was unmoved by the beauties of Sussex or by the colors of the sunset, which for the moment made picturesque the scraggy evergreens on the horizon.  His eyes were with his heart, and that was in Sparta.  Above the roar of the car-wheels we heard his nagging inquiries.

“What did Lycurgus do then?”

Answer not audible.

“No.  He made laws.  Who did he make laws for?”

“For the Greeks.”

“He made laws for the Lacedemonians.  Who was another great lawgiver?”

“It was—­it was—­Pericles.”

“No, it was n’t.  It was Solon.  Who was Solon?”

“Solon was one of the wise men of Greece.”

“That’s right.  When did he flourish?”

When the train stops at a station the classics continue, and the studious group attracts the attention of the passengers.  Pa is well pleased, but not so the young lady, who beseechingly says,

“Pa, everybody can hear us.”

“You would n’t care how much they heard, if you knew it,” replies this accomplished devotee of learning.

In another lull of the car-wheels we find that pa has skipped over to Marathon; and this time it is the daughter who is asking a question.

“Pa, what is a phalanx?”

“Well, a phalanx—­it’s a—­it’s difficult to define a phalanx.  It’s a stretch of men in one line,—­a stretch of anything in a line.  When did Alexander flourish?”