“And smells as sour as vinegar,” says he.  “The black bread of Sparta!”

Alas! for my maiden loaf!  With a rueful face I placed it on the breakfast table.  “I hoped to have given you a treat, but I fear you will find it worse than the cakes in the pan.”

“You may be sure of that,” said Tom, as he stuck his knife into the loaf, and drew it forth covered with raw dough.  “Oh, Mrs. Moodie!  I hope you make better books than bread.”

We were all sadly disappointed.  The others submitted to my failure good-naturedly, and made it the subject of many droll, but not unkindly, witicisms.  For myself, I could have borne the severest infliction from the pen of the most formidable critic with more fortitude than I bore the cutting up of my first loaf of bread.

After breakfast, Moodie and Wilson rode into the town; and when they returned at night brought several long letters for me.  Ah! those first kind letters from home!  Never shall I forget the rapture with which I grasped them—­the eager, trembling haste with which I tore them open, while the blinding tears which filled my eyes hindered me for some minutes from reading a word which they contained.  Sixteen years have slowly passed away—­it appears half a century—­but never, never can home letters give me the intense joy those letters did.  After seven years’ exile, the hope of return grows feeble, the means are still less in our power, and our friends give up all hope of our return; their letters grow fewer and colder, their expressions of attachment are less vivid; the heart has formed new ties, and the poor emigrant is nearly forgotten.  Double those years, and it is as if the grave had closed over you, and the hearts that once knew and loved you know you no more.

Tom, too, had a large packet of letters, which he read with great glee.  After re-perusing them, he declared his intention of setting off on his return home the next day.  We tried to persuade him to stay until the following spring, and make a fair trial of the country.  Arguments were thrown away upon him; the next morning our eccentric friend was ready to start.

“Good-bye!” quoth he, shaking me by the hand as if he meant to sever it from the wrist.  “When next we meet it will be in New South Wales, and I hope by that time you will know how to make better bread.”  And thus ended Tom Wilson’s emigration to Canada.  He brought out three hundred pounds, British currency; he remained in the country just four months, and returned to England with barely enough to pay his passage home.

THE BACKWOODSMAN

  Son of the isles! rave not to me
  Of the old world’s pride and luxury;
  Why did you cross the western deep,
  Thus like a love-lorn maid to weep
  O’er comforts gone and pleasures fled,
  ’Mid forests wild to earn your bread?

  Did you expect that Art would vie
  With Nature here, to please the eye;
  That stately tower, and fancy cot,
  Would grace each rude concession lot;
  That, independent of your hearth,
  Men would admit your claims to birth?