“I doubt Emily is changed out of my knowledge.  I have not seen her since she was four years and a half old, when you brought her to Melbourne for me to see, and when she coaxed me out of far more lollies than were good for her.”

“I will bring her up in summer, and you will acknowledge that you would know her anywhere.  As for you, she will know you quite well, for did not we get your likeness taken at the time, and she shows it to every one as that of her dear old nurse.”

“I hope you’re no spoiling the bairn.”

“Oh! no, not much—­at least, if we are, we will get Miss Melville to counteract our bad treatment.”

“You’re no to make Miss Melville a terror—­that’s no fair.  But the wee things after Harriett, how do you call them?”

“Constance, Hubert, and Eva.”

“Well, they should save the eldest from being destroyed by foolish indulgence, for Emily and Harriett should be learned to give way to them.”

“Everybody gives way to all of the five—­but you must not say they are spoiled, either.  Harriett and Emily, too, learned a lot of monkey tricks on board ship.  The gentlemen took so much notice of them, and encouraged a good deal of impertinence in the children.”

“A ship is a bad school for bairns,” said Peggy.  “Mine will be come some length before we go on board, and are not like to be so much taken notice of.  Does Mrs. Phillips like England?”

“Very much, indeed.  She will not go back with her own goodwill, and I hope not to need to return.”

“All your friends are in this country,” said Peggy, “and Mrs. Phillips will have so much new to see here that she will not regret the station.  And how’s Mrs. Bennett, is she still with you, and Martha, Mrs. Tuck they call her now?”

“They are both on the station yet, Peggy; Mrs. Bennett the same admirable woman she used to be, but one cannot advance her any way with such a poor creature of a husband.  There is no rise in him; he is a shepherd, and a shepherd he will remain to the end of his days, spending his wages in an occasional spree, and then coming back to us to work for more; while that poor silly Martha happened on one of the best men about the place, and I have left him an under-overseer.  If the two men could only have exchanged wives, things would appear more equitably arranged.”

“Well,” said Peggy, when Mr. Phillips had gone, “people can see other folks’ blunders, but the man that I thought worst mated on the station was the master himself.  You’ll have to take high ground with Mrs. Phillips, Miss Melville, for if you give her an inch she will take an ell.  As for him, he is everything that is reasonable; and the bairns, you must just make them mind you.  But she is the one that will give you the most trouble.”