The New Home.

Once again, and for the last time, we shift our scene to Canada—to the real backwoods now—the Brandon Settlement.

Sir Richard, you see, had been a noted sportsman in his youth. He had chased the kangaroo in Australia, the springbok in Africa, and the tiger in India, and had fished salmon in Norway, so that his objections to the civilised parts of Canada were as strong as those of the Red Indians themselves. He therefore resolved, when making arrangements to found a colony, to push as far into the backwoods as was compatible with comfort and safety. Hence we now find him in the very far West.

We decline to indicate the exact spot, because idlers, on hearing of its fertility and beauty and the felicity of its inhabitants, might be tempted to crowd to it in rather inconvenient numbers. Let it suffice to say, in the language of the aborigines, that it lies towards the setting sun.

Around Brandon Settlement there are rolling prairies, illimitable pasture-land, ocean-like lakes, grand forests, and numerous rivers and rivulets, with flat-lands, low-lands, high-lands, undulating lands, wood-lands, and, in the far-away distance, glimpses of the back-bone of America—peaked, and blue, and snow-topped.

The population of this happy region consists largely of waifs with a considerable sprinkling of strays. There are also several families of “haristocrats,” who, however, are not “bloated”—very much the reverse.

The occupation of the people is, as might be expected, agricultural; but, as the colony is very active and thriving and growing fast, many other branches of industry have sprung up, so that the hiss of the saw and the ring of the anvil, the clatter of the water-mill, and the clack of the loom, may be heard in all parts of it.

There is a rumour that a branch of the Great Pacific Railway is to be run within a mile of the Brandon Settlement; but that is not yet certain. The rumour, however, has caused much joyful hope to some, and rather sorrowful anxiety to others. Mercantile men rejoice at the prospect. Those who are fond of sport tremble, for it is generally supposed, though on insufficient grounds, that the railway-whistle frightens away game. Any one who has travelled in the Scottish Highlands and seen grouse close to the line regarding your clanking train with supreme indifference, must doubt the evil influence of railways on game. Meanwhile, the sportsmen of Brandon Settlement pursue the buffalo and stalk the deer, and hunt the brown and the grizzly bear, and ply rod, net, gun, and rifle, to their hearts’ content.

There is even a bank in this thriving settlement—a branch, if we mistake not, of the flourishing Bank of Montreal—of which a certain Mr Welland is manager, and a certain Thomas Balls is hall-porter, as well as general superintendent, when not asleep in the hall-chair. Mrs Welland, known familiarly as Di, is regarded as the mother of the settlement—or, more correctly, the guardian angel—for she is not yet much past the prime of life. She is looked upon as a sort of goddess by many people; indeed she resembles one in mind, face, figure, and capacity. We use the last word advisedly, for she knows and sympathises with every one, and does so much for the good of the community, that the bare record of her deeds would fill a large volume. Amongst other things she trains, in the way that they should go, a family of ten children, whose adoration of her is said to be perilously near to idolatry. She also finds time to visit an immense circle of friends. There are no poor in Brandon Settlement yet, though there are a few sick and a good many aged, to whom she ministers. She also attends on Sir Richard, who is part of the Bank family, as well as a director.

The good knight wears well. His time is divided between the children of Di, the affairs of the settlement, and a neighbouring stream in which the trout are large and pleasantly active. Mrs Screwbury, who spent her mature years in nursing little Di, is renewing her youth by nursing little Di’s little ones, among whom there is, of course, another little Di whom her father styles Di-licious. Jessie Summers assists in the nursery, and the old cook reigns in the Canadian kitchen with as much grace as she formerly reigned in the kitchen at the “West-End.”

Quite close to the Bank buildings there is a charming villa, with a view of a lake in front and a peep through the woods at the mountains behind, in which dwells the cashier of the Bank with his wife and family. His name is Robert Frog, Esquire. His wife’s name is Martha. His eldest son, Bobby—a boy of about nine or ten—is said to be the most larky boy in the settlement. We know not as to that, but any one with half an eye can see that he is singularly devoted to his mild little brown-eyed mother.

There is a picturesque little hut at the foot of the garden of Beehive Villa, which is inhabited by an old woman. To this hut Bobby the second is very partial, for the old woman is exceedingly fond of Bobby—quite spoils him in fact—and often entertains him with strange stories about a certain lion of her acquaintance which was turned into a lamb. Need we say that this old woman is Mrs Frog? The Bank Cashier offered her a home in Beehive Villa, but she prefers the little hut at the foot of the garden, where she sits in state to receive visitors and is tenderly cared for by a very handsome young woman named Matty, who calls her “mother”. Matty is the superintendent of a neighbouring school, and it is said that one of the best of the masters of that ............