Thus, On Their Arrival At The Bend, The Delinquents Found That, Besides Being Both Censured And Laughed At For Their Selfishness, They Had Lost Their Places, Their Dinners, And Their Tempers.

As we were rowing to shore, the captain told us that our worst difficulty was yet to come - an insuperable one, he added, to corpulent persons.

There was no landing-place for boats, or indeed for anything, at low water, and we had to climb up a wharf ten feet high, formed of huge round logs placed a foot apart from each other, and slippery with sea-grass. It is really incredible that, at a place through which a considerable traffic passes, as being on the high road from Prince Edward Island to the United States, there should be a more inconvenient landing-place than I ever saw at a Highland village.

Large, high, springless waggons were waiting for us on this wharf, which, after jolting us along a bad road for some distance, deposited us at the door of the inn at Shediac, where we came for the first time upon the track of the cholera, which had recently devastated all the places along our route. Here we had a substantial dinner of a very homely description, and, as in Nova Scotia, a cup of tea sweetened with molasses was placed by each plate, instead of any intoxicating beverage.

After this meal I went into the "house-room," or parlour, a general "rendezvous" of lady visitors, babies, unmannerly children, Irish servant- girls with tangled hair and bare feet, colonial gossips, "cute" urchins, and not unfrequently of those curious-looking beings, pauper-emigrant lads from Erin, who do a little of everything and nothing well, denominated stable-helps.

Here I was assailed with a host of questions as to my country, objects in travelling, &c., and I speedily found that being from the "old country" gave me a status in the eyes of the colonial ladies. I was requested to take off my cloak to display the pattern of my dress, and the performance of a very inefficient country modiste passed off as the latest Parisian fashion. My bonnet and cloak were subjected to a like scrutiny, and the pattern of the dress was taken, after which I was allowed to resume my seat.

Interrogatories about England followed, and I was asked if I had seen the queen? The hostess "guessed" that she must be a "tall grand lady," and one pretty damsel that "she must dress beautiful, and always wear the crown out of doors." I am afraid that I rather lessened the estimation in which our gracious liege lady was held by her subjects when I replied that she dressed very simply on ordinary occasions; had never, I believed, worn the crown since her coronation, and was very little above my height. They inquired about the royal children, but evinced more curiosity about the princess-royal than with respect to the heir to the throne. One of the querists had been at Boston, but guessed that "London must be a pretty considerable touch higher." Most, however, could only compare it in idea with St. John, N. B., and listened with the greatest appearance of interest to the wonders which I narrated of the extent, wealth, and magnificence of the British metropolis.

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