Bendigo or Ballarat; my cash is getting to run | behind him, she made a successful snatch at low." Then my poor aunt, utterly subdued, spoke brokenly through a burst of sobs. "Oh Bob, Bob! My poor foolish wilful girl! Get those silly papers from him at any price. He says his money is running low. Buy them from him; oh! do buy them from him." This speech wounded me more than all. That the discovery of my imprudence should have deprived Aunt Winnie of the faculty of making sharp speeches, gave me a clearer idea of it than even in my misery I ever had before; and my weak, wayward pettishness, which had but a short half-hour before nearly betrayed me into life-long suffering, was now indeed fully convinced as to who were my true friends who really loved me, as Sexton exclaimed, in reply to this last petition "You are mistaken, old lady. Here are the documents in question" and through the branches I saw him produce a tied-up bundle of letters as he spoke, "everyone of them; and they are not to be purchased by their weight in ten-pound notes, at least not until I have had some fun out of them, as I intend to entertain a few friends with a perusal of their high-flown sentiments this evening. I'll take care and teach Miss Whimsical what breaking an engagement means." Oh, how humiliated I felt, listening to all this! Yet when I heard Uncle Harding speak again, to offer him a five-pound note for what he held, and receive only a scornful laugh by way of reply, my indignation gave me courage, and instead of lurking any longer in hiding, I walked boldly forward. "Dear uncle," I said, "do not ask him for these papers any more. After all they are only very silly, and it will be more disgraceful to himself to use them than to me. The only thing I dreaded was the shame of you or Aunt Winnie knowing about them. Now, as you do know all, I have nothing more to fear; let him do as he pleases, he is not worth your notice." Bad and tipsy as he was, my sudden presence and words abashed him for a minute or so; but quickly recovering, he shouted— "So the murder is out then. Pussy was to sit in the corner while the old folks tried to draw the lion's claws. I wonder where sweet master Bryan is; he should be here, too, to take his part in the play." We listened in silence, while, growing more coarse and, as it would seem, more tipsy every moment, he concluded a violent tirade by crying out, as he shook the little packet above his head triumphantly "Now is your time to decide, Miss Mary. You have not a moment to spare; I cannot stay here all night. Which shall it be, the marriage or the grog-shop audience?" "Neither," exclaimed Aunt Winnie, delight in her tones (she confessed afterwards she had been for some time watching the opportunity), as, poising her active little figure on a log his prize, and the next moment-under the protection of my uncle-was tearing the recovered letters into shreds and casting them away for ever in a fluttering shower upon the passionless bosom of the stream. CHAP. III. I stood hastily winding up my hair before the small dressing-glass in our bedroom, while Katie stood idly looking on, praising its great length and beauty, with childish admiration. I had not time to notice her chatter, even if my thoughts happened to be disengaged, which they were not, as, in common with the other grown members of the household, I was going off to one of the outlying farms called Hawthorne, about five miles farther in the bush, where the corn was to be stacked that day, no one remaining behind save my little companion and an elder brother, not yet strong enough to work. It was not to take care of the house they remained; there was not the slightest fear that any one would even enter in our absence; but to see that none of our cattle strayed into the next pasture, as we had there, for the last few months, an exceedingly vexatious and dan. gerous neighbour. It was Sexton; for a year had already passed since the evening of the scene in which aunt had so unceremoniously snatched my unlucky letters from him, in a few weeks after which event he again disappeared from the neighbourhood for some time, but returned in about five months after with sufficient money to purchase a small stock of cattle, and rent by the year some grass-land, which was unfortunately to be let, next my uncle's place; ever since which time he had made himself as troublesome as only so close a neighbour malignantly inclined could contrive to do; endeavouring, too, in every possible manner to put a quarrel on Bryan, who just as sedulously avoided entering into one with him, and making my very life a burthen to me, as I felt that but for my imprudence and obstinacy his enmity would never have been called forth at all. Strange to say, Aunt Winnie did not revenge his ill-doings on me in the least as I at first feared she would. I believe her triumph in proving to me how right she had been in her estimate of his character, together with the still greater one of having herself deprived him of the source of his power, robbed her anger against me of its sting, although she still hated Sexton thoroughly. Uncle Harding was kind and considerate as ever, but Bryan and I never exchanged a word with each other, except when we could not possibly avoid doing so. I could not feel grateful to him; on the contrary, I had an unreasonable feeling of annoyance towards him for the part he had taken in my affairs: I felt it was not for my sake he had attempted to offer me advice, on one or two occasions, after my final quarrel with Sexton, and before that highly honourable gentleman had again fitted no one knew where; it was, as I told myself, lest one of his family should be compromised in the slightest degree by some wild act of Tom's in his indignation at what he believed a preconcerted plan; although the reader knows how far that idea was from the truth, when, by the merest accident, he met not me, but uncle and aunt, at our usual trysting place. The utter contempt, too, of Bryan's manner to me, in the early part of that eventful evening, rankled in my mind, and precluded the smallest notion that he had any interest in me for my own sake; so I took care in my manner towards him to give him back scorn for scorn, and took even a bitter pleasure in listening to his every word, watching his every movement, that I might have the satisfaction of quietly going an opposite direction to whatever he seemed to think right or best to do; although, indeed, I cannot accuse him of ever expressing any interest, one way or another, in anything I happened to say or do at that time; and, perhaps, to confess the truth, I might have been more leisurely in performing my toilet on the present occasion; but that I preferred walking with Uncle Harding to our place of destination to going with Aunt Winnie in the spring car, which he (Bryan) was to drive. It was Monday the terrible day since known in the colony as Black Monday-and so fearfully hot, even at the early hour in which we set out, as to be almost suffocating: it was like breathing the air of a furnace, and yet, as we passed out, we could see over the fence Sexton very industriously employed burning stubble in his fields. dwell upon the occurrences of the earlier part of the day, which were of the most ordinary character. Our work progressed rapidly, and the stacking was almost entirely completed, when, about two o'clock in the afternoon, the immense volumes of smoke driven in our direction, and which surrounded us like a dense fog, formed the first heralds of the fearful calamity which was already following rapidly in their track. More than two years have come and gone since that time, yet I often start up from my sleep at night, fancying I am in the midst of that terrible scene. In the midst of the suffocating smoke, with the swift red billows of fire rolling up towards us from three sides, leaving only that behind us leading to our own home free, that I am still standing as if paralyzed, gazing stupidly at it, until it at length made good its destructive way, and seized the corn, which, under the blessing of Providence, had been the fruit of my poor uncle's unwearying industry, and the means to which he looked for the support of his large family, as well as to pay off the liabilities to which a bush-farmer for many years must be subject, no matter how prosperous he is, or how promising may be his future prospects. Dear uncle, at the first cry of "the stacks on fire!" all presence of mind deserted him: he could do nothing, make no exertion to save anything; but walked up and down, wringing his hands, and declaring if he had a pistol he would shoot himself; while the two boys, younger than Bryan, cried like little children. Bryan, however, worked bravely, now flinging up great buckets of water as they were pumped up from the sunk-well by the workmen, now laying a guiding hand on the plough, which had been hastily yoked in order to turn up the earth around, and so check the progress of the flames. While Aunt Winnie, all her native energy com"If I could speak to that fellow," remarked ing out on the occasion, contrived to harness a my uncle, “I would advise him not to risk his horse to the great dray with her own hands, and own and his neighbour's safety, as he is doing. kept calling to me all the time to fling a large On such a day as this fire is a dangerous ser- pile of flour-sacks, worth nearly thirty pounds, vant, and very apt to turn master; but, proba-into it, to try and save them, as they were not bly if I said as much, he would persevere the ours, but merely borrowed from the mill the more; as it is, he will very likely be in the grog-week before. By degrees many of the squatters, shop in half-an-hour." I did not reply. To see him, even to hear his name casually mentioned, always gave me a feeling of guilt, which rendered it impossible for me to enter into conversation respecting him with any one; so we pursued our way in silence, under the shade of the mighty trees, and through the thick, low scrub, until the brooding stillness was broken by the sharp cracking of Bryan's whip behind us, as he called to the horse, or by the sound of his song, or cheerful laugh, as he chatted gaily to his mother, of whom he was very fond. They were very soon beside us, when, on my again declining-although really very tired after my long walk-to take a seat in the car, my three companions commenced a conversation about the business on which we were bound, which lasted until we reached Hawthorne, There is no occasion to chased from the surrounding bush by the advancing fire, joined us, but could do nothing but stand idly looking on, until a few of them found employment in bearing poor Uncle Harding, who had fainted, to a shepherd's hut, a short distance off, and whither Aunt Winnie followed to attend to him. I have often felt ashamed of myself since. I was too shocked to feel shame then at my own utter uselessness; but a still greater horror was to arouse me from my stupor. I do not know how it was, but like the strange things which follow each other in a dream, it did not seem singular to me, in the general confusion, that Frank, who had been left at home with Kate, should suddenly fling his arms round me, and exclaim, over and over again, through bursts of terrified sobs "Oh, Mary! save her-save her! I cannot find Bryan-I cannot find any one. Katie will be burned-Katie will be burned. All the place is on fire at Sexton's; 'twill be soon with Come home-come home." us. hand to aid or save me! I never, never-not alone through life, but even through eternity, I believe-can forget that moment's despair. In an instant, like an electric flash-as I have heard it said of people drowning-every event of my life passed vividly before me, passed swiftly, as I heard the eager fiz-fizzing of the hungry fire through the long black hair which Katie had so praised that morning, followed by the clear realisation of the fact that I was about to die a fearful death-death by fire! Nay, that I was dying it now, alone in the wilderness. Alone-God and I. I did not feel the pain of the burning then. I only felt the awful despair! for the first, and oh may it be for the last, time my life, in all its blank hopeless intensitythat awful feeling. Yes, I was thoroughly aroused at last. The thought of the danger in which the child, dearer even to me than my own life, was placed, restored to me the presence of mind which I had lost; and merely waiting to ask my poor trembling Frank how it was he had left his little sister behind, and hearing in reply that he could not induce her in her fright to leave the house at all, he thought it best to ride off himself for assistance, I seized the reins of a horse from which some one had just dismounted, and my few months of Bush training for once stand-in ing me in good stead, I sprang to the saddle, and calling to the poor boy to send help after me, rode madly away. No; there was no hope for me. Others had perished in the same way, why should not I? Then the river-the river, flashed upon my mind. Could I reach it, I should be safe, I thought; and I had already taken one step towards what would have been certain destruction to me, when I felt myself cast suddenly to the ground, and had only one swift moment to It is now impossible to say how that ride through the Bush was accomplished by me in safety. That I escaped with uninjured limbs, nay, with life itself so far, was not due to any guiding hand of mine, but to the unerring instinct of the poor frightened animal, who bore me on so fleetly, considering the many danger-see the eyes of the only man I now knew I had ous obstacles in the shape of giant branches, immense logs, and deep ravines which lay along our way, clouded, moreover, as it was, by the thick dark smoke which now enveloped the whole country round. Gasping for air, I prayed fervently that I might reach our own clearing before any of the-I will not say sparks, but great fire-flakes descending so thickly, should altogether ignite the tall timber which grew so closely together as to be in some parts intertwined; and indeed many trees caught fire as we passed beneath, leaving them burning behind. On, on-for my own life now, as well as for poor Katie's-I urged the panting companion of my terrible adventure, until at length becoming irritated beyond all control by the constant falling, like a shower of red hail, singeing and penetrating his shaggy ungroomed coat, he reared suddenly almost upright, flinging me from his back, but happily on to a great soft heap of fallen leaves, and galloped wildly away I knew not where. It could have been worse, I thought, as I rose quickly, unhurt, and saw that now, on the very edge of the Bush, ten minutes more would bring me to my little cousin. But it was not to be 80. I had come through a mighty plain of fire unscathed, only to be injured when I considered myself comparatively safe. Yes; just as I set foot on our own clearing, a splinter from one of Sexton's fences, now all a flame, fell as I ran blindly on; and my foot at the same time slipping, in another moment I was lying on it on my back, with the skirt of the thin calico skirt I wore in one blaze around me. Oh, gracious Providence! Alone in the Bush! Alone in the midst of fire!-of a Bush fire! with no human creature near to stretch forth a ever really loved in the whole world, looking, filled with love and anguish, into mine, before something was wrapped closely round me, and I knew no more-no more until I recovered from what had been a long illness and delirium, to find myself lying weak and suffering in my own little room, for I had been fearfully burned between my shoulders and on the upper part of my left arm, saved only from certain death, as the surgeon declared, by the presence of mind of my cousin; saved at the last moment, too; for were it not for his providential arrival, sent on as he had been by Frank, just in time to hold me back, I should never have succeeded in my rash attempt to reach the river alive. I should have been reduced to a mere heap of ashes on the way. Next to the joy of seeing all my relatives safe and well round my bed-my little Katie beyond all—perhaps the greatest pleasure of my convalescence was that all the home property had escaped uninjured, the cattle being saved at the expense of the kitchen-garden, which happened fortunately to have a stone wall, as in the old country, instead of the log fence usual in Victoria, low enough to be leaped, at any rate in their terror of the flames, by the poo rtrembling animals. As for my little darling, she was never in any real danger at all, as I might have known if my natural impulsiveness permitted me to remember that for the very purpose of saving it from such a calamity as in the present instance occurred to many, our house had been built on a small stony hill, on which there was not an atom of anything either to create or feed fire. So that while everyone petted and praised me as a self-forgetting heroine (as if any one would think of one's own life on such an occasion) I could only fret about my foolish impetuosily being again the cause of trouble to all of them, by laying me on a sick bed when I should be ip assisting them in their losses and disappoint ments. The reason, independent of all others, why I ejoiced so much that we had not suffered at home, was that the fire, which had been so destructive at Hawthorne, had originated in quite another part of the district; and aunt Winnie and I even to this day cannot be persuaded that Sexton did not of set purpose try to destroy my uncle's place by burning stubble on such a day of intense heat, and when the whole family, except two children, was to be absent, if he had succeeded in his evil intent, I should always blame myself as the giddy, selfwilled cause of the misfortune. As it was, so blamed was he by others, who had suffered by his suspicious conduct (to say the least of it), and so threatened by them with actions for damages, that before the sitting of the County Court came round, he had sold off everything that remained to him, and had gone away to New Zealand, where I hope sincerely he may remain. For ourselves, we had a sharp struggle for some time; and but for Bryan's energy in assisting his father to meet and obtain time from his creditors for the payment of the sums coming due, and Aunt Winnie's admirable management of her dairy, by which she soon began to clear five pounds a week, I taking the entire charge of the house when I had gathered a little strength, things would have gone hardly with us. But we have, thank God, rubbed through, and are now again doing well, my uncle being as active and hopeful as ever. I had nearly forgotten, however, to state that about a year ago Bryan had another conversation with me in that most unromantic place, our farm-kitchen, where, after asking me a few questions, to which I had given him satisfactory replies, he drew me very close to him indeed, and asked just one more. "Why did you tease me so long, Mary? Why did you not let me know you cared for me before?" "Because I did not know it myself," I answered; "never until that terrible day-that day which broke down at length the barrier between us, you piqued me so with your carelessness, your contempt of me." "Carelessness! contempt!" he repeated. "No. But I was miserable and jealous. And and I wanted you to do what was right. But I see now I went a bad way about it." But why did you busy yourself so much about Sexton? What was he to you, sir?" I demanded saucily. Bringing his messages, being his postman. Why was it so?" 66 Because I thought you loved him," he answered simply. And, my darling, I loved you better than I loved myself." How can I ever worship such a man sufficiently! Yes, whatever Black Monday brought to other people of misery and poverty, to me it brought happiness-brought me the crowning blessing of my life, for it brought me Bryan Harding for my husband. RAMBLES AND REVERIES OF A MODERN MORALIST. No. IV. CONCERNING DAY-DREAMS. I believe that I am not overstating the truth when I say that I am a thoughtful man. I have always been thoughtful from a child; I always in my infant days liked to know the cause of things; this desire of mine was somewhat inconvenient at times to my friends and relations. I always liked to look at the back of a picture as well as the front; nay, I even remember that once when I had fallen down six stairs, I speculated after the pain was over what might have happened had I fallen down twelve instead of six. This I think shows very satisfactorily that I am of a thoughtful nature. I am, moreover, very observant. When I walk, which I do very often, I like to think and to speculate about everything I see, whether it be a human being in the crowd of Fleet Street, or a cab-horse struggling in the mud, or a flowerpot in an attic window. I never like to walk the streets, nor the country lanes either, in that unenviable state of mind attributed by the poet to the " Jolly Young Waterman," who was in the habit of rowing along and "thinking of nothing at all." Now I do not envy the man who walks and thinks of nothing at all. If I am out on a matter of business I think over that business, and do not let other thoughts drive it out of my head; but when I am walking for my own particular pleasure, and with no definite object in view, I like to think about the things I see and hear; in fact, to dream about them. Yes, I must plead guilty to a habit of day-dreaming, which some people imagine totally disqualifies a man from attending to the duties of life. But here I beg to differ from those people: when business or duty calls, as I said just now, I attend to it; but after business comes plea sure, and then I dream, and who shall blame me? I am the only sufferer from this habit; and I sometimes have to endure very hard knocks and startling collisions in the street when I have not been attending to my footsteps. But, seriously, is this habit of day dreaming a very bad one? Surely it is better to dream, even at the risk of having your toes trodden upon, than to go, as so many of us do, from Dan to Beersheba and "find all barren." Another quality which I possess very strongly is that of inquisitiveness. This is also condemned by many; but I cannot help it: I am inquisitive-not rudely so, I hope, but still fond of looking into things and round things; and, in a word, finding out all about things. I never yet went so far as to knock at the door of a house in a quiet street and ask them why they always kept the blinds down in the front parlour, or why they never clean the windows; but I have asked a sturdy beggar who asked for a penny why he preferred begging to working, which I consider much the easier and pleasanter occupation. And I have more than once asked an ostler why when cleaning a horse he persisted in hissing like some enraged specimen of the python tribe. Moved by the same spirit of enquiring, I once asked a pavior why he uttered a sound distantly resembling a groan, and not altogether unlike the hiccoughs, when he was driving down pavingstones; but to none of these enquiries did I receive a satisfactory answer. The beggar ran away precipitately, mistaking me, I presume, for an officer of the Mendicity Society; the ostlers said it pleased the horse when they hissed, and kept them from biting-an interesting fact in natural history which I recorded, and mentally resolved to try its efficacy on a fierce bull-dog of my acquaintance. Another of the stable tribe told me that hissing "came quite natural to him, and he couldn't rub down a horse without it." The pavier, who was a bit of a wag, said his father and grandfather before him had both been of the same trade, and both had grunted in the very same way that he grunted, and so he supposed it ran in the family. I thought of Sam Weller and the philosophy that was hereditary in his family, and went away laughing, but not satisfied. Talking of philosophy, what a time to test a man's pretensions to that gift is a wet day in London! I have lived too long in our aqueous climate to mind rain; umbrellas are a dead letter with me; and clad in vestments that have long been spoilt, and so cannot be spoilt again, I often roam about the sloppy streets, and watch how the sinister influence of St. Swithin affects my fellow men and women. Many of the sublimest and most terrible of passions may be seen under such circumstances. Joy is de picted on the face of a well-dressed man who sees an omnibus with one vacant place inside, and takes it. Disappointment is shown in that of a lady who comes to a cab-stand and finds no one there but the waterman. Despair is depicted in the agonized glances of a parent with five small children, who sees six omnibuses pass him full “in and out!" Then the walkers, who know it is of no use "standing up," and equally useless hailing vehicles already occupied, they show a variety of phases beneath their dripping umbrellas. There is the angry man who is not a philosopher, and who goes along with a fierce stride and set teeth, from which issue at times sounds which may be blessings, but which do not sound like them. Very likely he has an appointment with a cousin in the park, or is going to a little fish dinner at Richmond, or perhaps he has a new hat on-who knows? Then there is the patient, enduring man, with a good deal of the early martyr in his compo sition, who walks along grimly through the rain, and at times lowers his umbrella, and holds up his face to the sky; then being quite convinced of the descent of much water therefrom, he sighs, re-erects his shelter, and goes on more resignedly than before. The true philosopher is quite a different style of man. He comes along, smiling as cheerfully as if the sun was at his meridian, and the streets as clean as his dressing-room carpet, instead of its being very muddy, unusually windy, and, moreover, performing the anoma lous operation of "raining cats and dogs." The philosopher knows well enough that grumbling is of no use: he recollects that "the glass fell last night, and that of course he ought to have expected rain; besides, as another philosophic friend of his had said, "it was very seasonable weather, very seasonable indeed!" How that man is to be envied! What an enviable blessing to be able to look out of window in the morning, and find it raining, without giving vent to objectionable expletives! Talk of Alexander, or Alfred, or anyone else who has borne the title of "Great!" Why the man who can bear the petty ills "which flesh is heir to" without grumbling; who can meet disappointment with a smile, and has "nil desperandum" written somewhere in his heart, is worth all the great men of antiquity put together. Alexander grumbled because there was not another world to conquer; Hannibal was never easy till he had crossed the Alps, and was not satisfied when he had; these men were not 'great," they could not bear disappointment. I have no doubt Julias Cæsar stamped and foamed if his despatches came too late, and it is well known that Augustus did not bear the loss of his legions with equanimity. If the story of Sir Isaac Newton and his dog Diamond is true (which I very much question) it is only another proof of that wonderful man's universal greatness; for Newton was a "great man" in every sense-he was good as well as great. All this has arisen out of a shower of rain! Truly, great things arise from small beginnings. The most natural object connected with a |