and return per first opportunity. We've loads of
furs here and plenty of deer-stalking, not to mention galloping on
horseback on the plains in summer and dog-sledging in winter. Alas!
my poor friend, I fear that it is rather selfish in me to write so
feelingly about my agreeable circumstances, when I know you are slowly
dragging out your existence at that melancholy place York Fort; but
believe me, I sympathise with you, and I hope earnestly that you will
soon be appointed to more genial scenes. I have much, very much, to
tell you yet, but am compelled to reserve it for a future epistle, as
the packet which is to convey this is on the point of being closed.

Adieu, my dear Harry, and wherever you may happen to pitch your tent,
always bear in kindly remembrance your old friend, CHARLES KENNEDY.

The letter was finished, but Harry did not cease to hold intercourse
with his friend. With his head resting on his two hands and his elbows
on the table, he sat long, silently gazing on the signature, while his
mind revelled in the past, the present, and the future. He bounded over
the wilderness that lay between him and the beautiful plains of the
Saskatchewan. He seized Charley round the neck, and hugged and wrestled
with him as in days of yore. He mounted an imaginary charger, and swept
across the plains along with him; listened to anecdotes innumerable from
Jacques, attacked thousands of buffaloes, singled out scores of wild
bulls, pitched over horses' heads and alighted precisely on the bridge
of his nose, always in close proximity to his old friend. Gradually his
mind returned to its prison-house, and his eye fell on Kate's letter,
which he picked up and began to read.--It ran thus:--

MY DEAR, DEAR, DARLING CHARLEY,--I cannot tell you how much my heart
has yearned to see you, or hear from you, for many long, long months
past. Your last delightful letter, which I treasure up as the most
precious object I possess, has indeed explained to me how utterly
impossible it was to have written a day sooner than you did; but that
does not comfort me a bit, or make those weary packets more rapid and
frequent in their movements, or the time that passes between the
periods of hearing from you less dreary and anxious. God bless and
protect you, my darling, in the midst of all the dangers that surround
you. But I did not intend to begin this letter by murmuring, so pray
forgive me,