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168 Jessie to help his resolution. He sat awhile with the paper before him after she brought it, and the old home feelings and memories crowded upon him. The old-fashioned roomy farmhouse; the jolly, good-natured, but yet sometimes imperious father; the careful affectionate mother; the teazing but pleasant brothers and' sisters; the old church with the elms round it; the good-humoured rector, with his stately lady; the young curate whom all the girls worshipped; the village alehouse, where the smock-frocked peasants resorted on Sundays and holidays; the old pear-trees in the garden; the old horses in the stable; the middle-class school to which he had been sent as a boarder and where he had learned very little for the money it had cost, but where he had first entertained the notion of going to sea.

"No wonder it is hard for George Copeland to begin his letter, the first he's written since he came here," said Hugh Lindsay rather bitterly; "for he has only to acquaint his friends that he is as changeable after ten years in the colonies as he was when he went from his father's house."

But when George fairly began his letter he wrote quickly and evidently a good clear flowing hand. Jessie sat down with a book where she could not see him, but George changed his position and she would not change hers.