make mischief, and mischief-making is a calling in which it does not require much wit to be successful.
The inhabitants are a sturdy race, more than one-half of them being of Scotch descent. They are prevented from attaining settled business-like habits by the long winter, which puts a stop to all out-door employment. This period, when amusement is the only thing thought of, is called in the colonies "blowin-time." All the country is covered with snow, and the inhabitants have nothing to do but sleigh about, play ball on the ice, drive the young ladies to quilting frolics and snow picnics, drink brandy-and-water, and play at whist for sixpenny points.
The further you go from Charlotte Town, the more primitive and hospitable the people become; they warmly welcome a stranger, and seem happy, moral, and contented. This island is the only place in the New World where I met with any who believed in the supernatural. One evening I had been telling some very harmless ghost stories to a party by moonlight, and one of my auditors, a very clever girl, fancied during the night that she saw something stirring in her bed-room. In the idea that the ghost would attack her head rather than her feet, she tied up her feet in her bonnet-de-nuit, put them upon the pillow, and her head under the quilt—a novel way of cheating a spiritual visitant.
There are numerous religious denominations in the colony, all enjoying the same privileges, or the absence of any. I am not acquainted with the number belonging to each, but would suppose the Roman Catholics to be the most dominant, from the way in which their church towers
