The winter packet—Harry¹ hears from old friends, and wishes that he was with them.

Letters from home! What a burst of sudden emotion—what a riot of conflicting feelings, of dread² and joy,—expectation and anxiety—what a flood of old memories—what stirring up of almost forgotten associations these three words create in the hearts of those who dwell in distant regions of this earth, far, far away from kith and kin³, from friends and acquaintances, from the much-loved scenes of childhood, and from home! Letters from home! How gratefully the sound falls upon ears that have been long unaccustomed to sounds and things connected with home, and so long accustomed to wild, savage⁵ sounds, that these have at length lost their novelty, and become everyday and commonplace, while the first have gradually grown strange and unwonted. For many long months home and all connected with it have become a dream of other days, and savage-land a present reality. The mind has by degrees become absorbed by surrounding objects—objects so utterly⁶ unassociated with or unsuggestive of any other land, that it involuntarily ceases to think of the scenes of childhood with the same feelings that it once did. As time rolls on, home assumes a misty⁷, undefined character, as if it were not only distant in reality, but were also slowly retreating farther and farther away—growing gradually faint and dream-like, though not less dear, to the mental view.

“Letters from home!” shouted Mr Wilson, and the doctor, and the skipper, simultaneously⁸, as the sportsmen, after dashing through the wild storm, at last reached the fort, and stumbled tumultuously into Bachelors’ Hall.

“What!—Where!—How!—You don’t mean it!” they exclaimed, coming to a sudden stand, like three pillars of snow-clad astonishment

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