aring colours is
derived from the savage side of their natures; but the
Metis women have an artistic instinct of their own, and
being for the greater part coquettes, it may very safely
be said that according to the fitness of things is it
that they attire themselves. But they are not able to
shake off the superstitions of their race. If the young
woman soon to be a mother, sees a hawk while crossing
the fields in the morning, she comes home and tells among
her female friends that her offspring is to be a son;
and they all know that he is to be fleet and enduring in
the chase, and that he will have the eyes of a hunter
chief. But if a shy pigeon circle up from the croft, and
cross her path, she sighs and returns not back to relate
the omen; and it is only in undertones that her nearest
friend learns a week afterwards that the promised addition
to the household is to be a girl. The appearance of other
birds and beasts, under similar circumstances, are likewise
tokens; and though boys would be born, and girls too, if
all the hawks and pigeons, and foxes and wild geese, and
every other presaging bird and beast of the plains had
fallen to the gun of huntsman and "sport," they cling to
the belief; and the superstition will only die with the
civilization that begat it. Many of the customs of their
red mothers they still reverently perpetuate; but they
are for all this deeply overlaid with Canadianism. Of
all the women on the face of the earth, they are the
greatest gossips.

Not in their whole nature is there any impulse so strong
as the love to talk. Therefore, when the morning's meal
is ended, the pretty mother laces the boots around her
shapely little ankles, puts her blanket about her, and
sallies out to one of her friend's houses for the morning's
gossip. In speaking of her dress, I neglected to state
that although the Metis woman had for gown the costliest
fabric ever woven in Cashmere, she would not be content,
on the hottest summer day, in walking twenty paces to
her neighbour's door, unless she had this blanket upon
her. The hateful looking garment is the chief relic of
her barbaric origin, and despite the desire which she
always manifests to exhibit her personal charms at their
best, she has no qualms in converting herself into a
hideous, repulsive squaw, with this covering. If she be
of a shy nature, she will cover her head with this garment
when a stranger enters her abode; and many a curious
visitor who h