I believe we caught hold of one another in our fright, and were almost surprised when, outstripping lame old Richardson, as he announced “Mr. Alison!” there came only three persons.  They were the two tallest men I had ever seen, and a little girl of eight years old.  I found my hand in a very large one, and with the words “Are you my aunt Lucy?” I was, as it were, gathered up and kissed.  The voice, somehow, carried a comfortable feeling in the kindness of its power and depth; and though it was a mouth bristly with yellow bristles, such as had never touched me before, the honest friendly eyes gave me an indescribable feeling of belonging to somebody, and of having ceased to be alone in the world.

“Here is Eustace,” he said, “and little Dora,” putting the child forward as she backed against him, most unwilling to let me kiss her.  “And, I did not know I had another aunt.”

“No,” I said, starting between, for what would Lady Diana’s feelings have been if Viola had carried home an Australian kiss?  “This is Miss Tracy.”

Viola’s carriage was now actually coming, and as I went into the house with her, she held me, whispering to me to come home at once with her, but I told her I could not leave them in that way, and they were really my nephews.

“You are not afraid?” she said.

“What do you think he could do to me?” I asked, laughing.

“He is so big,” said Viola.  “I never saw any one so big, but I think he is like Coeur de Lion.  Ah!” We both shrieked, for a most uncanny monster was rearing up in front of us, hopping about the hall, as far as was allowed by the chain that fastened it to the leg of a table.

“Mr. Alison brought it, ma’am,” said Richardson, in a tone of disgust and horror.  “Will you have the carriage out, Miss Alison, and go down to the Wyvern?  Shuh! you brute!  He shan’t hurt you, my dear ladies.  I’ll stand between.”

We had recovered our senses, however, enough to see that it was only a harmless kangaroo; and Dora came running out, followed by Harold, caressing the beast, calling it poor Nanny, and asking where he should shut it up for the night

I suggested an outhouse, and we conducted the creature thither in procession, hearing by the way that the kangaroo’s mother had been shot, and that the animal itself, then very young, and no bigger than a cat, had taken Harold’s open shirt front for her pouch and leaped into his bosom, and that it had been brought up to its present stature tame at Boola Boola.  Viola went with us, fed the kangaroo, and was so much interested and delighted, that she could hardly go away, Eustace making her a most elaborate and rather absurd bow, being evidently much impressed by the carriage and liveried servants who were waiting for her.

“Like the Governor’s lady!” he said.  “And I know, for I’ve been to a ball at Government House.”