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stations there. I am very sure he would like you, for he was wondering who to send. I wish he would send me, instead of poking me with Mr. Prince over those detestable Latin and Greek lessons, and those beastly problems. Fred and I hate them like poison, and after a year of that we're to go to England, and Fred will be sent to Harrow, or Rugby, or Eton to be flogged; and I to Oxford or Cambridge to be plucked. The whole business is a complete sell; and my father and mother have set their hearts on it, and it must be gone through. I know I'll be running away and going to sea or something of that sort, and then what will their feelings be? What is the use of all that rubbish? If a man can back a horse, and hunt up cattle, he may live like a gentleman in the bush. I don't mind learning to shoe a horse, or carpentering like Allan, and if my father would only trust me on the Darling I'm sure I'd give him satisfaction; but that brutal lingo that Mr. Prince is hammering into us is fit for nothing but monkeys to jabber. And I am sure the governor knows nothing about it himself, though he looks so wise when Prince tells him what book of Virgil we are at, and quotes a line or two of the gibberish, as if he understood every word of it. The girls actually say they like their lessons, but it must be all pretence;