Pleasant Bank,
April 20th, 1871.
My Dear Sister,

I received your kind, long looked for and welcome letter August last dated April 3, 1870 and I wrote next English mail which was September, the next month and John put it in an envelope for Nancy. I hope you got them safe. I have been looking for one this two months but I do not see the point in waiting from one years end to another and surely some of our letters go astray and never come to hand I think we should make arrangements and write if not every month at least once a quarter and then they could not all be lost.
I hear the Californian mail is not so safe as the English mail.The English mail closes Saturday 22nd. I wrote to Agnes my intentions to write to you and she sent over a note to be put in my envelope. I am afraid she will not have time as there is only today and tomorrow. She had a young son the month I sent you my last letter. She has two, a daughter and a son. The daughter's name is Mabel Kate. The sons is Charles. Her husband has an uncle that brought him up and schooled him (John Coppock), he has no family of his own.
John has a young daughter one month old last Sunday, born 19th March. It was Christened Easter Sunday. Its name is Jane Boyd Little.
Agnes and John live about twenty miles from one another and about three hundred from this- of course I cannot tell- it is a rough guess. The name of the nearest town to John is Yackandandah*, I suppose a native name. The nearest to Agnes is Myrtleford**.
James has got the second wife the 1st December last. He put overseer to manage the place and he took an overseer billet to manage a sheep station. It is about 70 miles of his own station. He will see his own station about every six weeks. He has £150:0:0 per annum. The name of the nearest town is Yea***, and then it is but a few struggling houses and of course a public house among them.
My sons, sons-in-law and grand children are all Rechabites. They do not know what the taste of grog is.
The young William was married September a few days after I sent you the last letter. His wife's name is Mary Jane Clapperton.
James new wife's name is Jamesina Paxton Gollen.
I suppose if you got the likeness William sent, you will see me sitting with a dear baby on my knee. She was poisoned first April this month by neglect- poisoning pissants something mixed with sugar. She was eleven months old. I nursed her and took care of her a year and a half and was to me as my own child and I to her as a mother.
I stopped with William too. He took his Wedden trips and then I came home. I always call this my home because I have a room with my things in it.
Second April, when I was near ready to go to Church, I got word my dear pet was dead. It was like King David I would have died for that dear pet.
William and the rest of the family is well. He was greatly cut up about that child. When you get this letter take another look at that dear pet sucking its finger. You will see where my heart did rest in that.....Elisa and her family is all well. She has two daughters married, one in New Zealand and has three children. In Victoria she has two. Hannah is down in Melbourne with her daughter about to be confined of the second child. James married daughter lives in Kyneton. They have three children. David, wife and family is well. All my daughters, and sons and sons-in-law are well.

And I myself the head of a very numerous family and all doing pretty well. I am pretty healthy except for a pain in my arm, it is rheumatism. How is your own health. How is your daughter that was ailing when you sent the last letter. How is Nancy and William. I do not know the rest of the names.
Sarah, her that I am Living with had a daughter the day before yesterday, for the fifteenth, eleven sons and two daughters and two dead. The eighth was a girl and the last a girl and a girl and boy dead. She and the child is getting on nicely. I have no bother. She has in a woman to take care of her and the baby. He make his money writing. He is the clerk of the Shire Council at near £500:0:0 per annum so they are living very comfortable.
Excuse my scribble besides my pen is not very good. I would like very much to know how John and Isaac is. Uncles David and Peggy. I suppose they are all almost dead. What came of Peggy's family? are they dead or alive.
Winter is coming on now, we had a severe winter last, with rain and floods. Was very few in Victoria had nor the seed off their ground, it has completely since shed.
A lot of them that was creeping along, those people that selected land and had to borrow out of the bank till the crop comes. The bank has given up and some of them do not know what to do....grass is very good and butter very cheap- from five pence to six pence per pound. Sarah has one of her sons learning to be a server, another a pedlar, one a wholesale dealer in teas and sugar and such like, corn, cheese butter. Five at school. I am going to send this letter away. I am getting my son-in-law Robert Harper to back my letter before he goes to his office. He goes every day, he has a mile to walk. Write soon. Agnes' letter has not come yet, I must conclude.
With kind love to all. In looking through your letters I see Emily's name.
With kind love to Nancy, Emily, Robert, yourself and all the little ones and William. And believe me my dear sister to be your affectionate sister to death.