night and up to this time (twelve o'clock Wednesday), and it was so cold
besides. While at the hotel (I forgot to mention _that_) a card was
handed to me with Mr. Price's name on it. I could not think who he was,
but he soon came and mentioned Capt. F--- (Julia Spicer's son-in-law),
and then I remembered he had promised to mention us to the Prices. He
offered to drive one of the ladies in his buggy to his house near the
Montmerenci Falls, where we were all to lunch, and E--- went in it, and
the rest of us drove in another carriage to his place, about five miles
off. The drive was delightful and his cottage a picture--a little, fat,
fair motherly woman for a wife, with two little chicks, and a lady
friend. They took us down some steps to the Falls, the river Montmerenci
falling 500 feet, and it was very fine, the view being improved by the
figures of our fellow-passengers on the opposite side making struggling
efforts to gain good positions, which we achieved in all ease and
comfort. Then we returned to an excellent luncheon, very pleasantly
diversified to us by Indian corn, which we learned to eat in an
ungraceful but excellent fashion on the cob, blueberry tart and cream.
This was our _third_ substantial meal on Tuesday. Several visitors
called, and among them our fellow-passengers, Mr. Stephen Bourne and his
daughters and two friends, who are also staying here, a gentleman with
three other ladies (two of whom had been on the "Parisian") who said he
had been staying lately with one of them in Cheshire, so I concluded he
was an English-Canadian and said heartily: "That's right, keep up with
the old country. You come to see us and we come to see you." And he
responded graciously, but I heard after that he was a French-Canadian
and R. C., and they are not fond of England, but cling very much to
French ways and customs and are entirely in the hands of their priests.
They are a quiet, moral people, marry very young and have very large
families. It is quite common to hare ten children, and they live at what
we should call a starvation rate; yet they will not go to service,