s own
line; and we often are brought to say together how inexcusable it is
when everything turns out so much better than we expected, and when
"God" not only "chains the dog till night," but often never lets him
loose at all! Still the natural terrors of an untravelled and not
herculean woman about the ups and downs of a wandering, homeless sort
of life like ours are not so comprehensible by him, he having
travelled so much, never felt a qualm of sea-sickness, and less than
the average of home-sickness, from circumstances. It is one among my
many reasons for wishing to come Home soon, that one chat would put
you in possession of more idea of our passing home, the nest we have
built for a season, and the wood it is built in, and the birds (of
many feathers) amongst whom we live, than any _letters_ can do.... You
can imagine the state of (far from blissful) ignorance of military
life, tropical heat, Canadian inns, etc., etc., in which I landed at
Halifax after such a sudden wrench from the old Home, and such a very
far from cheerful voyage, and all the anecdotes of the summer heat,
the winter cold, the spring floods, the houses and the want of houses,
the servants and the want of servants, the impossibility of getting
anything, and the ruinous expense of it when got! which people pour
into the ears of a new-comer just because it is a more sensational and
entertaining (and _quite_ as stereotyped) a subject of conversation as
the weather and the crops. The points may be (isolatedly) true; but
the whole impression one receives is alarmingly false! And I can only
say that my experience is so totally different from my fears, and from
the cook-stories of the "profession," that I don't mean to request Rex
to leave Our Department at present!...

TO MRS. GATTY,

_Fredericton._ Septuagesima, 1869.

... I am sending you two fairy stories for your editorial
consideration. They are not intended to form part of "The Brownies"
book--they are an experiment on my part, and _I do not mean to put my
name to them_.

You know how fond I have always been of fairy tales of the Grimm type.
Modern fairy tales always seem to me such _very_ poor things by
comparison, and I have two or three theories about the reason of this.
In old days when I used to tell stories to the others, I used to have
to produce them in considerable numbers and without much preparation,
and as that argues a _certain_ amount of imagination, I have
determined to tr