Some large blocks of water-worn stone formed convenient seats and a natural table, on which the little maiden arranged the forest fare; and never was a meal made with greater appetite or taken with more thankfulness than that which our wanderers ate that morning.

The eggs (part of which they reserved for another time) were declared to be better than those that were daily produced from the little hen-house at Cold Springs.

The strawberries, set out in little pottles made with the shining leaves of the oak, ingeniously pinned together by Catharine with the long spurs of the hawthorn, _[FN: The long-spurred American hawthorn may be observed by our young readers among that beautiful collection of the hawthorn family and its affinities, which flourish on the north side of Kensington Gardens.]_ were voted delicious, and the pure water most refreshing, that they drank, for lack of better cups, from a large mussel-shell which Catharine had picked up among the weeds and pebbles on the beach.
Many children would have wandered about weeping and disconsolate, lamenting their sad fate, or have embittered the time by useless repining, or, perhaps, by venting their uneasiness in reviling the principal author of their calamity--poor, thoughtless Louis; but such were not the dispositions of our young Canadians.

Early accustomed to the hardships incidental to the lives of the settlers in the bush, these young people had learned to bear with patience and cheerfulness privations that would have crushed the spirits of children more delicately nurtured.

They had known every degree of hunger and nakedness; during the first few years of their lives they had often been compelled to subsist for days and weeks upon roots and herbs, wild fruits, and game which their fathers had learned to entrap, to decoy, and to shoot.