first time you are elected. Do not think I am more than half
mad. In truth I expect great things from you, and I expect
without any fear of disappointment. You have an obstinacy of
perseverance, under that calm face of yours, that will be more
than a match for all obstacles in your way; indeed obstacles
only make the rush of the stream the greater, if once it get
by them; the very things which this minute threatened to check
it, the next are but trophies in the foaming triumph of its
onward course. You can do what you will; and you will aim
high. Aim at the highest.

"_I_ am aiming as hard as I can, and so fast that I can't see
whether my arrows hit. Not at the capture of any pretty face,
-- though there are a few here that would be prizes worth
capturing; but really I am not skilled in that kind of archery
and on the whole am not quite ready for it. An archer needs to
be better equipped, to enter those lists with any chance of
success, than alas! I am at present. I am aiming hard at the
dressing up of my mind, in the sincere hope that the dressing
up of my person may have some place in the after-piece. In
other words, I am so busy that I don't know what I am doing.
Asphodel was a miserable place (though I am very glad you are
in it) -- my chances of success at Little River are much
better. Indeed I am very much to my mind here; were I, as I
said, a little better equipped outwardly, and if my aunt
Landholm only had mamma's recipe for making pumpkin pies; or,
as an alternative, had the pumpkin crop this season but
failed. But alas! the huge number of the copper-coloured tribe
that lurked among the corn forests a few weeks ago, forbid me
to hope for any respite till St. Nicholas jogs my aunt L.'s