Antonia was in a great way when she saw the telegram, in the _Evening Times_, that you had been apprehended and locked up for keeping company with ’another prisoner.’ Ha, ha, ha! Can’t help it, couldn’t really! She kept picturing you in a dungeon, and all the rest of it. I said that you would enjoy it for a day or two, during the hot weather. What do you think about walking? Have you got a horse yet? We are all very middling. Couldn’t you square it with Jedwood to come down at Christmas? There’s not much work doing then anywhere. The verandah at Morahmee won’t be half a bad place about that time, if it’s as hot as it was last year. I saw Hartley Selmore the other day. He sold Gammon Downs to a young fellow, just out. My head clerk is rather a queer old character. ‘Ah! sir,’ he said, ‘don’t you think Mr. Selmore will go to hell for selling such a place to that poor young gentleman?’ ‘Really I don’t know,’ I answered; ‘there always seems a sufficient supply of young fellows with a little money and no brains. If they were not gobbled up by the Selmores, some other big fish would be sure to have them.’ However, Antonia said Hartley was a cold-blooded rascal, and I was nearly as bad for making light of his villainy. So I did not take much by my joke. Stock has fallen since you left town, and will fall more yet if the war does not come to an end, and this very dry season. So your money is all the safer in the bank. Don’t on any account invest without consulting me. Work as hard as you like, but don’t get sunstroke. Avoid brandy and water; and when you’re very tired of wool and bullocks, see if you can’t find the road to Morahmee again. Remember me to our Jedwood. He’ll keep you up to the mark, unless he’s altered.—Your old friend, PAUL FRANKSTON. CHAPTER XI He who embarks upon an enterprise or commences a course of life involving absolute departure from every early habit and association will invariably be assailed at some stage or period by distrust, even by despondency. It is not in man to complete all the multifarious acts and volitions pertaining to any momentous change without experiencing the strongest reactionary impulses to halt, to doubt, to waver, to retreat. That Ernest Neuchamp possessed these, among other weaknesses of our nature, we are by no means prepared to deny. But he had one counterbalancing quality which oftentimes stood him in good stead, when on the dangerous declivities of indecision. This compensating element was a habit of reasoning out his proceedings logically before the day of battle. He formed his opinions, arranged his movements, with Prussian deliberation and purpose aforethought. Having decided upon his order of action, he vowed mentally that no infringement upon his plan should be suffered, whatever might be his own ephemeral impulses, even convictions.