carved just below the heavy lid, more than 200 years old, and as sound as ever.  The sloping mirror over the chest of drawers was still supported by the four seasons, one at each corner.  Above it was Queen Caroline, with the crown on her head, and the sceptre in her hand, seated in a magnificent Roman chariot, drawn by the lion and the unicorn.  That team had tortured my young soul for years.  I could never understand why that savage lion had not long ago devoured both the Queen and the unicorn.

My old love was looking at me, and at last she put one hand on my knee, and said: 

“It’s George.”

“Yes,” I said, “it’s George.”

She gazed a while into the fire and said: 

“Alice is dead.”

“Yes, Alice is dead.”

“And Jenny is dead.”

“Yes, and Jenny.  They are at the bottom of the sea.”

In that way she counted a long list of the dead, which she closed by saying: 

“They are all gone but Joe.”

She had been a widow more than twenty-five years.  She was a young woman, tall and strong, before Bonaparte, Wellington, the United States, or Australia, had ever been heard of in Lancashire, and from the top of a stile she had counted every windmill and chimney in Preston before it was covered with the black pall of smoke from the cotton-mills.

AMONG THE DIGGERS IN 1853.

I.

I lost a summer in 1853, and had two winters instead, one in England, the other in Australia.

It was cold in the month of May as we neared Bendigo.  We were a mixed party of English, Irish, and Scotch, twelve in number, and accompanied by three horse-teams, carrying tubs, tents, and provisions.  We also had plenty of arms wherewith to fight the bush-rangers, but I did not carry any myself; I left the fighting department to my mate, Philip, and to the others who were fond of war.  Philip was by nature and training as gentle and amiable as a lamb, but he was a Young Irelander, and therefore a fighter on principle.  O’Connell had tried moral suasion on the English Government long enough, and to no purpose, so Philip and his fiery young friends were prepared to have recourse to arms.  The arms he was now carrying consisted of a gleaming bowie knife, and two pistols stuck in his belt.  The pistols were good ones; Philip had tried them on a friend in the Phoenix Park the morning after a ball at the Rotunda, and had pinked his man—­shot him in the arm.  It is needless to say that there was a young lady in the case; I don’t know what became of her, but during the rest of her life she could boast of having been the fair demoiselle on whose account the very last duel was fought in Ireland.  Then the age of chivalry went out.  The bowie knife was the British article bought in Liverpool.  It would neither kill a man nor cut a beef-steak, as was proved by experience.