rs,
listening to sermons; and even the interval is somewhat evenly divided
between their bread and cheese in the churchyard and the discussion of
the sermon they have just listened to. They are great on theology. One
worthy old party tackled me on my views of the sermon we had just heard;
after a little preliminary sparring I went to my corner. I often wonder
in what continent I am.

"The school, a primitive little log affair, has much run to seed, but
offers opportunity for repose. I shall avoid any unnecessary excitement
in this connection.

"In private life the padre is really very decent. We have great smokes
together, and talks. On all subjects he has very decided opinions, and
in everything but religion, liberal views. I lure him into philosophic
discussions, and overwhelm him with my newest and biggest metaphysical
terms, which always reduce his enormous cocksureness to more reasonable
dimensions.

"The minister's wife is quite another proposition. She argues, too,
but unfortunately she asks questions, in the meekest way possible
acknowledging her ignorance of my big terms, and insisting upon
definitions and exact meanings, and then it's all over with me. How
she ever came to this far land, heaven knows, and none but heaven can
explain such waste. Having no kindred soul to talk with, I fancy she
enjoys conversation with myself, (sic) revels in music, is transported
to the fifth heaven by my performance on the violin, but evidently
pities me and regards me as dangerous. But, my dear Maitland, after
a somewhat wide and varied experience of fine ladies, I give you my
verdict that here among the Anakim, and in this wild, woody land, is
a lady fine and fair and saintly. She will bother me, I know. Her son
Hughie (he of the bear), of whom I told you, the lad with the face of
an angel and the temper of an angel, but of a different color--her son
Hughie she must make into a scholar. And no wonder, for already he has
attained a remarkable degree of excellence, by the grace, not of the
little log school, however, I venture to shy. His mother has been at
him. But now she feels that something more is needed, and for that
she turns to me. You will be able to see the humor of it, but not the
pathos. She wants to make a man out of her boy, 'a noble, pure-hearted
gentleman,' and this she lays upon me! Did I hear you laugh? Smile not,
it is the most tragic of pathos. Upon me, Jack Craven, the despair of
the professors, the te