Page:An emigrant's home letters.djvu/133

to sigh for a permanent home. It may be fixed in the immense wilds of this wonderful country, or amidst the native haunts of the New Zealand savage; or it may be in the beautiful and fertile island of Otaheite, or in Chili, or Peru, or it may be among the settlements of Malacca, or in South Africa, or the United States of America; but I am Bad to think it is not likely to be in my native land, though I still must hope to lay my bones in old England. As soon as I am able to write you more explicitly of my views for the future I will be sure to do so. And I trust I shall have it in my power before long to repay your love and kindness to me in past years. Tell our beloved mother, should this reach you while she is allowed to remain with you, that the prospect before her children in this strange country is fair for the cloudy times we live in, and assure her of our unabated affection. Tell her and my dear father and my sisters and brothers, and my beloved wife's friends also, that, though every other feeling may be blunted by continual contact with the world, our love for them will receive new vigour from trouble and privation, from strife and sorrow. Long before you can read this I trust we shall receive a happier account from you—of health banishing