was carried on in a regular and
profitable manner.

The Agency-house, with its unusual luxuries of piazza and gardens, was
situated at the foot of the hill on which the fort was built. It was a
lovely spot, notwithstanding the stunted and dwarfish appearance of all
cultivated vegetation in this cold northern latitude.

The collection of rickety, primitive-looking buildings, occupied by the
officials of the Fur Company, reflected no great credit on the
architectural skill of my husband, who had superintended their
construction, he told me, when little more than a boy.

There were, besides these, the residences of the Dousmans, the Abbotts,
the Biddles, the Drews, and the Lashleys, stretching away along the
base of the beautiful hill, crowned with the white walls and buildings
of the fort, the ascent to which was so steep that on the precipitous
face nearest the beach staircases were built by which to mount from
below.

My head ached intensely, the effect of the motion of the boat on the
previous day, but I did not like to give up to it; so, after I had been
shown all that could be seen of the little settlement in the short time
allowed us, we repaired to Mr. Mitchell's.

We were received by Mrs. M., an extremely pretty, delicate woman, part
French and part Sioux, whose early life had been passed at Prairie du
Chien, on the Mississippi. She had been a great belle among the young
officers at Fort Crawford; so much so, indeed, that the suicide of the
post-surgeon was attributed to an unsuccessful attachment he had
conceived for her. I was greatly struck with her soft and gentle
manners, and the musical intonation of her voice, which I soon learned
was a distinguishing peculiarity of those women in whom are united the
French and native blood.

A lady, then upon a visit to the Mission, was of the company. She
insisted on my lying down upon the sofa, and ministered most kindly to
my suffering head. As she sat by my side, and expatiated upon the new
sphere opening before me, she inquired:

"Do you not realize very strongly the entire deprivation of religious
privileges you will be obliged to suffer in your distant home?"

"The deprivation," said I, "will doubtless be great, but not _entire_;
for I shall have my Prayer-Book, and, though destitute of a church, we
need not be without a _mode_ of worship."

How often afterwards, when cheered by the consolations of that precious
book in the midst of the lonely wilderness,