[Written at top] Excuse paper but it is easy to write on a pad.

My dear dear boy,

Just a few lines to say how sorry I am to think of you plugging away at those wretched law-books. I am sure, dearie, it will require all your grit and determination to keep at those books. It must be so monotonous & so dry that I pity you with all my heart. It has indeed been a long pull and one wonders sometimes, if the degree of B.A. is worth all the extra years of study, and yet I think in the long run you will find it is worth it. You will I think in after years always have a great interest in educational university matters, & to this end one needs to be a graduate. So you must just do your best to stick it out now.

After you get your dinner, couldn't you just stroll up & see Willie MacKay & inquire for them all. I scribbled you a note and enclosed a dollar last week. I suppose you got it. I am still in bed, it is hard to get up when one once gets down, but on the whole am mending. A slight attack of sciatica put me back.

To-night is a meeting of the congregation, when committee will report in favour of Mr. Ketchen, he will come if congregation is unanimous. Am sending a postal note which you can get cashed at the Branch P.O. I wish I could send you more, but have to send Cal. some, who is penniless. You will have to pay for your room out of this and then you will let me know if you can manage till Easter or not. You see I am not clear just how far behind you got. Then I know you are needing boots, do not know if you got the shirts. Poor little fellow!

Do you know Louis Stuart kept that job ever since? I think it was quite a lucky thing for him, I think he made nothing by the painting. He has been down to Quebec working out all winter.

The Government is in a wretched box. Ever since I was a little girl I can remember my father groaning over the way the Reform Party had to keep in with the Catholics. It was an unlucky day, when they put one in for Premier. I think you and Cal. had better cut the Reform Party forever. Just to think of that poper [sp?] Ablegate Ibaretti [sp?] having the ordering of the affairs of Canada and to think of Sifton, it makes one wild just to think how they have worked it, & Laurier with his smooth tongue, just playing into their hands. Of course he has the satisfaction of thinking in any case, his soul will be prayed out of purgatory since he has served the church, & the simple Protestants supporting him.

News has just come in that Chief Aitchison's dead. When Mrs. Mullin came this morning she said she had just seen him dashed against Sir John A.'s monument as he was driving and it seems he died an hour afterwards. Isn't it a terrible thing. It is so distressing to think of him poor fellow!

Mary appreciated very much your birth-day day letter. It was no wonder that election time should have put the date out of your mind. Thursday. Thought to have got this posted yesterday. I am feeling much better & hope to get up to-day. At the congregational meeting last night they gave me a special note of thanks for my labours. Dr. F. [Fletcher] says Mr. Ketchen is very well connected, so I trust it will all turn out well. He is engaged to a London young lady. The weather has been chilly but it will be better for studying. Well, dearie, must close.

Ever your loving mother

M.B. McQuesten