LETTER III. 31 



below, or the live thunder among the mountain 

 peaks. I felt sorry as I looked, and almost angry 

 that the pine's majestic beauty should be sacri- 

 ficed and turned to such humble uses. 



Ottawa, I believe, is gay enough in its season ; 

 it looks bright even in the dead time during- 



o O 



which we visited it ; but, of course, when the 

 House is not sitting, Ottawa sleeps. The little 

 town (for she has only 40,000 inhabitants as yet) 

 has a very English tone about her, and is right 

 loyal to the sovereign who gave her her pre- 

 eminence among Canadian cities. 



Even the flowers round Parliament Buildings 

 were so trained in this year of Jubilee as to spell 

 with their blossoms a loyal greeting to our Queen. 

 On leaving Ottawa we settled down steadily to a 

 week's railway travelling, more or less. ' No more 

 stoppages ' between this and Vancouver was our 

 watch-word. My husband was tired of hotel 

 life and pining for barbarism. All men, Lena, 

 revert quite naturally to barbarism, and I honestly 

 believe, were it not for our benign influence and 

 the necessity of providing payment for milliners' 

 bills, etc., a great many of them would even 

 sacrifice their clubs for the supreme pleasure of 

 working with their hands in the open air rather 

 than indoors with their heads. And really, seen 

 from a comfortable Pullman car, this war of man 



