As these large parties are very expensive, few families
can afford to give more than one during the visiting season, which
is almost exclusively confined to the winter. The great gun, once
fired, you meet no more at the same house around the social board
until the ensuing year, and would scarcely know that you had a
neighbor, were it not for a formal morning call made now and then,
just to remind you that such individuals are in the land of the
living, and still exist in your near vicinity.
I am speaking of visiting in the towns and villages. The manners and
habits of the European settlers in the country are far more simple
and natural, and their hospitality more genuine and sincere. They
have not been sophisticated by the hard, worldly wisdom of a
Canadian town, and still retain a warm remembrance of the kindly
humanities of home.
Among the women, a love of dress exceeds all other passions. In
public they dress in silks and satins, and wear the most expensive
ornaments, and they display considerable taste in the arrangement
and choice of colours. The wife of a man in moderate circumstances,
whose income does not exceed two or three hundred pounds a-year,
does not hesitate in expending ten or fifteen pounds upon one
article of outside finery, while often her inner garments are not
worth as many sous; thus sacrificing to outward show all the real
comforts of life.
