Ignorant of
all this, I put my unrisen bread into a cold kettle, and heaped a
large quantity of hot ashes above and below it. The first intimation
I had of the result of my experiment was the disagreeable odour of
burning bread filling the house.
"What is this horrid smell?" cried Tom, issuing from his domicile,
in his shirt sleeves. "Do open the door, Bell (to the maid); I feel
quite sick."
"It is the bread," said I, taking the lid of the oven with the
tongs. "Dear me, it is all burnt!"
"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.
