willing-I've nothing to leave behind except my poor old father and mother, and I can't help them at all by stopping here. All the way home, I have been fretting myself to a skeleton, thinking what a cruel thing it would be to take her out of a comfortable house that she's as much used to as if it was her own, and yet I can't keep her one, which seems very hard, when she's waited for me so long. However, as soon as I began to talk, says she, 'Don't say anything about resignation.' "

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With this enigmatical speech, Joe took the globe from Matilda's arms, and set it on the floor; then turning, first to us, and then to her, he continued, warming with his subject, Only give me the chance, and I'm not the one to hold back. If there's work to be done any where, I'm the man to do it. Why, I often heard say when I was over at Calcutta, that a man may earn from five and twenty to thirty shillings a week by light porterage alone at Sydney, and she says, she's read that washing is paid for there, at half a crown a dozen. Why, then, says I, when she says she's willing, let's be after the washing and the portering-let's put our best foot foremost, and throw the resignation overboard, for it stands to reason, as she says, if I'm forced to stay here and starve, why I can't do better than be resigned; but if there's plenty of meat and drink out there, if a man will but work for them, then resignation ain't the word for me. I'm the man that would rather see his family thankful over a good dinner, than trying to be patient with a bad one."

With this specimen of rough eloquence, Joe made his exit, Matilda following; and my grandfather gave way to a series of chuckles, expressive of his delight that his persuasions, and the knowledge he had imparted, should at length, after years of fruitless effort, have induced some of his countrymen to emigrate. It was astonishing how quickly Joe had learned his lesson-with Matilda for a teacher.

But my grandfather's triumph that night, was nothing to what was reserved for him the next morning, when being told that the beggar girl wished to speak to him, he went out and accosting her with "Well, my good girl, what do you want with me?" she replied composedly, "If you please, sir, I want to go to Out-stralia."

My grandfather drew a long breath, and the consequences of what he had done began to occur to him.

"And So, I suppose, you want me to help you to get there ?" he very naturally enquired.

"Please, sir," replied the girl simply.

"And what do you expect when you are there ?"

"Plenty of work," she answered with sparkling eyes," and plenty of victuals.”

"Ah, that will do, good girl: why are you alone?'

"Mother died at the Union, and sister has a hurt in her foot. She's lame, and won't go away, she says; but I want to go; I've begged my way back here."

"Perhaps if you get there, you may still have hardships to bear; there's no begging there, you know-everybody must work. First, you'll have a long voyage, and when once you are at sea, there's no turning back again; and then as soon as you land, you must begin to bestir yourself; you must brew, and you must wash, and you must bake."

But to all these representations, she only answered-" Please sir, I want to go to Out-stralia."

"Then, step in doors," said my grandfather, "you know what you are about, and you shall go."

And now succeeded a period of considerable excitement in our family. A great many letters were written to London, and a vast deal of trouble was undertaken by my grandfather, but this part of the business interested me very little. I was too much occupied in observing Matilda, and hearing her plans, as well as in watching how the beggar girl acquired various useful arts. She was taken into the house, and told to make herself useful, and she did; first one servant taught her something, then another was eager to impart what she knew; and so, in the course of a very few weeks, the beggar girl could make bread, heat an oven, and bake. She could dress meat and vegetables, salt pork and fish very cleverly, milk a cow, make butter, and also plait straw, which I am proud to say, I taught her myself.

It was not often she was allowed to be idle; but one day, happening for a few minutes to have nothing to do, she privately came to me, and enquired whether those plaits at the

back of my head, were of my own doing, and when I told her they were, she asked if I could show her how they were done, for she thought she might earn something in "Out-stralia," by plaiting straw for baskets and bonnets.

So by means of bits of tape and lengths of straw, I taught her a great many different ways of plaiting, so that before she went away, she had made a doll's bonnet, and three baskets of no mean workmanship. My grandfather thought no species of knowledge could come amiss to her, and took the trouble himself to teach her how to cook potatoes in the open air, without either wood, coals, or grate-he made her act this over several times: first, she took some potatoes and made a shallow hole in the ground for them, then pulverised a little earth over them, with her hands; she had next to collect a quantity of dry leaves, and some sticks, heap these over them, strike a light herself with a tinder box, and set fire to them, fan and feed the flame, and finally sweep away the ashes, and produce her baked potatoes. Very nice they were, and the experiment generally ended by our eating them, and heartily wishing that we were going to emigrate, that we might try these delightful experiments too.

As for Joe, he came over very often to my grandfather, to learn the proper time of year for planting different kinds of grain and vegetables: he used frequently to practise digging, trenching, pruning, and other common operations in the garden, and my grandfather would stop him now and then, to impart any thing that occurred to him, Joe always listening with great attention, and replying, "very good sir.”

"Joe," my grandfather would say, picking up an apple, "what do you call these little brownish husks at the top of this, they look like the remains of small withered leaves."

"Yes, sir, we used when I was a boy to call 'em the crown of the apple."

"Ah; well Joe, I won't trouble you with a harder name than that for them, can you think of any other fruit, that has a crown ?"

"Surely, sir; pears and quinces, gooseberries, currants, and I think, there must be a good many more."

"Why, yes, there are haws and hips, and medlars. Well,

Joe, whenever you see a crown like that at the top of a fruit, you need not be afraid to bite a piece out of it,—it may not be good for food, but it certainly won't poison you.”

"Very good, sir."

"Did you ever notice how a poppy grows, Joe? The red flower leaves are set on underneath the pod, where the seeds are, and it stands up in the middle.”

"So it does, sir.”

"But that's just contrary to the way an apple grows; there the flower is at the top, and the crown is the remains of it, the fruit swells out underneath. You'll keep that in mind, Joe."

But not to make my story too long, in the early part of April, Joe and Matilda were married, and one week after, every thing being put in trim for them by my grandfather, they set out with the beggar girl to go on board the vessel, which was to take them to Sydney.

Several months, indeed I think, nearly a year, passed before we heard any thing of them, and then old Mrs. Grattan brought a letter to my mother, from Joe, setting forth the comforts of the country, in such terms as could not fail to move the old woman's heart: tea, he informed her, much better than she could get in England, was only one shilling and eightpence per lb; he earned five and twenty shillings a week by light porterage, and by making himself generally useful, wherever he was wanted. As for Matilda, her washing and ironing nearly kept the house, so he was thankful to say, he could lay by a pound or so now and then, and he meant soon to have a good large garden; at present he had but a quarter of an acre. "But I can tell you, mother," he continued, "we've got one of the beautifullest beds of onions, you ever set your eyes on all nearly as large as Portugal onions; and meat being so uncommon cheap, I in general get some for supper as well as dinner, and we have plenty of fried onions with it; so what with that and the tea, I say we live like kings and queens, and Maria Bell, (the beggar girl) she grows quite a fine young woman, and helps my Matilda with her work; and many a talk we have about the bush, for I say, if I can lay up enough money to buy some land, I'll go out into the bush, and Maria

says she'll go with us and help us; for cook at Mr. T's taught her to milk a cow, and she is sure she can churn with the best of them."

Soon after this, came a letter from Matilda to me, informing me of the birth of a son and heir; as fine a child, Matilda said, as ever was seen. "And Joe says," her letter went on, “that he hopes, with the blessing of God, he can feed as many children as God sends, if there's a dozen of them; and, my dear, what a pleasure that is, for I can tell you I thought when he was born-if this dear child had come into the world, me and his father being in England, he would have taken the bread out of his mother's mouth, for I could not have gone out to work while he was little; but now if we have ever so many, they are sure to be welcome. My dear, this is a very curious country. What would you say to bird's nests made in the ground! There are birds here, whose nests are just like great manure heaps, full of eggs. I saw one: it was as large as a good sized cart—all dead leaves, and sand, and soil,—very hot, it was like a cucumber frame; and the eggs something like turkeys' eggs and quite as good.

"Maria Bell sends her duty; she lives with me, for she says she's determined she shall not marry at present, though she has plenty of opportunities as you may judge, for she is a very tall, fine young woman, and there are a great many men here very much in want of wives. But, my dear miss, if you could see her airs, and how she goes to church of a Sunday with a silk parasol over her head, you would laugh. I don't deny that she's a good girl, and has a right to good clothes, for she never earns less than from eighteen shillings to a pound a week, and she is very helpful to me; but Joe often has a laugh at her, when he sees her toss up her head, and talk of the respectable young fellows here, as if they was not by no means good enough for her! And to think how she used to eat the raw turnips! But we don't talk about that here, for it would be a disadvantage to her."

After this characteristic letter, we heard nothing more of the settlers for more than two years, and people in our neighbourhood, who had been much interested in them, began to shake their heads, and say, they wondered how my grandfather could