THE EUROPEAN WAY.

165

But perhaps the most noticeable thing of all was the quiet, sturdy, unharassed expression which their faces wore; a look which is the greatest charm of a childs face, but which we rarely see in children over two or three years old. Boys of eleven or twelve were there, with shoulders broader than the average of our boys at sixteen, and yet with the pure childlike look on their faces. Girls of ten or eleven were there, who looked almost like women, that is, like ideal women, simply because they looked so calm and undisturbed. . . . Out of them all there was but one child who looked sickly. He had evidently met with some accident, and was lame. Afterward, as the congregation assembled, I watched the fathers and mothers of these children. They, too, were broad-shouldered, tall, and straight, especially the women. Even old women were straight* like the negroes one sees at the South walking with burdens on their heads.

Five days later I saw, in Halifax, the cele­bration of the anniversary of the settlement of the Province. The children of the city and