accident two years after his marriage to a lady much older and much richer than himself, and she was living on two acres in North Adelaide, bought with her money at the first sale of city lands in 1837, and Mr. Tinline boarded with her till his marriage.  The nephews, and especially the nieces, of the old lady interested me—­Lucy, the eldest, a handsome girl, was about two years younger than myself; Arabella, about the age of my sister Mary; Elizabeth, the baby Beare, who was the first white person to set foot on South Australian soil after the foundation of the province, died from a burning accident when quite young.  The only survivor of that first family now is William L. Beare (84), held in honour as one of our earliest pioneers.  By a second marriage there were nine more children.  Several died young, but some still survive.

It was not till 1843 that I went as a daily governess at the rate of 6d. an hour, and gave two hours five days a week to the families of the Postmaster-General, the Surveyor-General, and the Private Secretary.  Thus I earned three guineas a month.  I don’t recollect taking holidays, except a week at Christmas.  I enjoyed the work, and I was proud of the payment.  My mother said she never felt the bitterness of poverty after I began to earn money, and the shyness which, in spite of all her instructions and encouragement, I had felt with all strangers, disappeared when I felt independent.  When a girl is very poor, and feels herself badly dressed, she cannot help being shy, especially if she has a good deal of Scotch pride.  I think mother felt more sorry for me in those early days than for the others, because I was so ambitious, and took religious difficulties so hard.  How old I felt at 17.  Indeed, at 14 I felt quite grown up.  In 1843 I felt I had begun the career in Australia that I had anticipated in Scotland.  I was trusted to teach little girls, and they interested me, each individual with a difference.  I had seen things I had written in print.  If I was one of the oldest in feeling of the young folk in South Australia in my teens, I am the youngest woman in feeling in my eighties; so I have had abundant compensation.

CHAPTER IV.

LOVERS AND FRIENDS.

It is always supposed that thoughts of love and marriage are the chief concerns in a girl’s life, but it was not the case with me.  I had only two offers of marriage in my life, and I refused both.  The first might have been accepted if it had not been for the Calvinistic creed that made me shrink from the possibility of bringing children into the world with so little chance of eternal salvation, so I said.  “No” to a very clever young man, with whom I had argued on many points, and with whom, if I had married him, I should have argued till one of us died!  I was 17, and had just begun to earn money.  I told him why I had refused him, and that it was final.  In six weeks he was engaged