“Dearest Bob,” it ran, “you will get this letter only a mail before our arrival. I had not meant to write again, but cannot resist doing so, to give you the earliest news about it. Sir Richard has changed his mind! You know, in my last, I told you he had helped to assist several poor families from this quarter—as well as mother and me, and Matty. He is a real friend to the poor, for he doesn’t merely fling coppers and old clothes at them, but takes trouble to find out about them, and helps them in the way that seems best for each. It’s all owing to that sweet Miss Di, who comes so much about here that she’s almost as well-known as Giles Scott the policeman, or our missionary. By the way, Giles has been made an Inspector lately, and has got no end of medals and a silver watch, and other testimonials, for bravery in saving people from fires, and canals, and cart wheels, and—he’s a wonderful man is Giles, and they say his son is to be taken into the force as soon as he’s old enough. He’s big enough and sensible enough already, and looks twice his age. After all, if he can knock people down, and take people up, and keep order, what does it matter how young he is?
“But I’m wandering, I always do wander, Bob, when I write to you! Well, as I was saying, Sir Richard has changed his mind and has resolved to emigrate himself, with Miss Di and a whole lot of friends and work-people. He wants, as he says, to establish a colony of like-minded people, and so you may be sure that all who have fixed to go with him are followers of the Lord Jesus—and not ashamed to say so. As I had already taken our passages in the Amazon steamer—”
“The Amazon!” interrupted Mr Merryboy, with a shout, “why, that steamer has arrived already!”
“So it has,” said Bob, becoming excited; “their letter must have been delayed, and they must have come by the same steamer that brought it; why, they’ll be here immediately!”
“Perhaps to-night!” exclaimed Mrs Merryboy.
“Oh! how nice!” murmured Martha, her great brown eyes glittering with joy at the near prospect of seeing that Hetty about whom she had heard so much.
“Impossible!” said Tim Lumpy, coming down on them all with his wet-blanket of common-sense. “They would never come on without dropping us a line from Quebec, or Montreal, to announce their arrival.”
“That’s true, Tim,” said Mr Merryboy, “but you’ve not finished the letter, Bob—go on. Mother, mother, what a variety of faces you are making!”
This also was true, for old Mrs Merryboy, seeing that something unusual was occurring, had all this time been watching the various speakers with her coal-black eyes, changing aspect with their varied expressions, and wrinkling her visage up into such inexpressible contortions of sympathetic good-will, that she really could not have been more sociable if she had been in full possession and use of her five senses.
“As I had already,” continued Bob, reading, “taken our passages in the Amazon steamer, Sir Richard thought it best that we should come on before, along with his agent, who goes to see after the land, so that we might have a good long stay with you, and dear Mr and Mrs Merryboy, who have been so kind to you, before going on to Brandon—which, I believe, is the name of the place in the backwoods where Sir Richard means us all to go to. I don’t know exactly where it is—and I don’t know anybody who does, but that’s no matter. Enough for mother, and Matty, and me to know that it’s within a few hundred miles of you, which is very different from three thousand miles of an ocean!