Page:Authors daughter v1.djvu/176

172 mind; her own writing was a slow and painful process, and she could not read written hand with any degree of fluency. She had had no idea that George was such an expert penman, and blushed when she returned him his letter.

"You had better read to me what you wish me to hear," said she. "It does not seem to be my business, but as I urged you to write and as I wish that we should pa friends I'll listen to it."

George's letter was to this effect:

"My dear Father and Mother—I have been too much ashamed of my long silence and of the unsatisfactory nature of anything I ever had to say to you since I came to Australia to write till now, but you must not think that I forget you, or cease to think of you with love and self-reproach. As I am resolving to act differently for the future, I am going to try to confirm my resolution by beginning a regular correspondence.

"It is now I think eighteen months since I wrote to you from Boorundara. I have since been on the South Australian side, and have been twelve months here doing miscellaneous farm and station work, and have got such a character for being a good hand that I am begged to stay by my present master and pressed to leave by one of his neighbours, and in both