aming sickle
in her hand, and her eyes filled with the prophetic light of love,
reigns a queen over the honest loving hearts of swains who lay at her
feet the brightest wisps of the upland. And the humble Ruth is there,
too, with her sweet patient face, and her timid look fixed on the
generous Boaz who allowed her to pick the gleanings of his golden corn.

Winter also has its feasts and its holidays. No where better than in
arctic climates are these celebrated by persons of every age and sex.
There are innumerable games and pastimes around the fire, where the
wildest merriment drives away the tedium of the long wintry night.
Stories are told, songs are sung, tricks are played. There is dancing in
the lighted hall; there is love making in the dark corners; and to crown
the festival there is a sleigh-ride under the cold moon, when the music
of the bells, the tramping of the hoofs, the shouts of the drivers, and
the shrill whistle of the Northern blast, are to the buoyant spirits of
the young promenaders like draughts of exhilarating wine.

In Canada, all these pleasant rural ceremonies of the old countries are
well preserved. And it is the only portion of this continent where they
are to be met with.

The American who has read of them, but has never witnessed them in
Europe, can find them faithfully reproduced in Canada.

But in spring, Canadians have a pastime peculiar to themselves,
furnished by their own climate. It is the season of sugar-making. At the
period in which the events of our story occurred, the cultivation of the
maple was much more extensive than now, but even at present it is
sufficiently well maintained to enable a traveller to study all its
picturesqueness and charm. In Vermont, New Hampshire, Michigan and
Wisconsin, the maple is cultivated, but in such a matter-of-fact,
mercantile fashion, that there is no rural poetry in the process.

The maples stand in an area of half an acre. Each one is notched at the
height of about a foot or a foot and a half from the ground. A piece of
shingle is fastened in the lips of the wound, at an angle of forty-five,
and down this trickle the sweet waters in a trough set at the foot of
each tree. There stand the forest wives distilling their milk, while the
white sunlight rests on their silver trunks and the soft winds of March
dally with their leafless branches. The sugarman has his eye fixed on
each of them, and as fast as the urns are filled, he empties them into