All gay as never was - the
sweetest country in the world. Never expect to see me in England
again; one is really somebody here. I have been asked to dance by only
twenty-seven. ..."
Ah! who would not forgive the frolicsome Bella all her flirtations?
But before we dismiss this pleasant record of other days, yet another
extract, and we have done.
(BELLA FERMOR TO LUCY RIVERS)
"Sillery - Eight in the evening.
"Absolutely, Lucy, I will marry a savage and turn squaw (a pretty soft
name for an Indian Princess!) Never was anything so delightful as
their lives. They talk of French husbands, but commend me to an Indian
one, who lets his wife ramble five hundred miles without asking where
she is going.
"I was sitting after dinner, with a book, in a thicket of hawthorn
near the beach, when a loud laugh called my attention to the river,
when I saw a canoe of savages making to the shore. There were six
women and two or three children, without one man amongst them. They
landed and tied the canoe to the root of a tree, and finding out the
most agreeable shady spot amongst the bushes with which the beach was
covered, (which happened to be very near me) made a fire, on which
they laid some fish to broil, and fetching water from the river, sat
down on the grass to their frugal repast. I stole softly to the house,
and ordering a servant to bring some wine and cold provisions,
returned to my squaws. I asked them in French if they were of Lorette,
they shook their heads - I repeated the question in English, when the
eldest of the women told me they were not, that their country was on
the borders of New England, that their husbands being on a hunting
party in the woods, curiosity and the desire to see their brethren,
the English, who had conquered Quebec, had brought them up the great
river, down which they should return as soon as they had seen
Montreal. She courteously asked me to sit down and eat with them,
which I complied with and produced my part of the feast. We soon
became good company, and brightened the chain of friendship with two
bottles of wine, which put them in such spirits that they danced,
sung, shook me by the hand, and grew so fond of me that I began to be
afraid I should not easily get rid of them.
"Adieu! my father is just come in and has brought some company with
him from Quebec to supper.
"Yours ever,
"A. FERMOR."
KIRK ELLA
"This villa, erected in 1850 on the north side of the St. Lewis road,
facing Cataracoui, affords a striking exemplification of how soon taste
and capital can transform a wilderness into a habitation combining every
appliance of modern refinement and rustic adornment.
