Page:The Englishwoman in America (IA englishwomaninam00birdrich).pdf/94

 I cannot forbear giving a conversation which took place at a meal at this inn, as it is very characteristic of the style of persons whom one continually meets with in travelling in these colonies: "I guess you're from the Old Country?" commenced my vis-à-vis; to which recognition of my nationality I humbly bowed. "What do you think of us here down east?" "I have been so short a time in these provinces, that I cannot form any just opinion." "Oh, but you must have formed some; we like to know what Old Country folks think of us." Thus asked, I could not avoid making some reply, and said, "I think there is a great want of systematic enterprise in these colonies; you do not avail yourselves of the great natural advantages which you possess." "Well, the fact is, old father Jackey Bull ought to help us, or let us go off on our own hook right entirely." "You have responsible government, and, to use your own phrase, you are on 'your own hook' in all but the name." "Well, I guess as we are; we're a long chalk above the Yankees, though them is fellers as thinks nobody's got their eye teeth cut but themselves."

The self-complacent ignorance with which this remark was made was ludicrous in the extreme. He began again: "What do you think of Nova Scotia and the 'Blue Noses'? Ilalifax is a grand place, surely!" "At Halifax I found the best inn such a one as no respectable American would condescend to sleep at, and a town of shingles, with scarcely any sidewalks. The people were talking largely of railways and steamers, yet I travelled by the mail to Truro and Pictou in a conveyance that would scarcely have been tolerated in England two