Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/192

 THE COLONY.

April 15th, 1833.—I have received your letters and devoured them; have been buried in newspapers, busied in unpacking, airing, &c., and altogether bewildered, with the variety of occupations and amusements which have come upon me all at once, in addition to my ordinary avocations. I cannot bring my mind to a state of sober regularity without going back a little, getting on my old track, and so habituating myself, by degrees, to the novelties of the road.

I had just opened the chest on Saturday, when Mr. Mackie came for dinner; and soon after arrived Captain Irwin, to whom I handed his letters, which were packed up along with mine, and we made a regular evening's feast, whilst Mackie, in the meantime, picked fragments of old news out of the papers.

My first feelings are those of humiliation and shame for having entertained even a passing doubt of the strength and constancy of your affections, and deep regret at the consciousness of being so undeserving of the affectionate terms in which you all express yourselves, and of the kind