naciously, but that you are looking higher?'

"'Mr. Brandon,' says I, 'George Powell is high enough for me, for he
would make me his wife; and if I was free to marry, I would look for no
higher match. But to think that what you offer is higher!--May God
forgive you for the thought!'

"'Why, Peggy, perhaps I may offer higher yet; you are a good and a
clever girl, and will make an admirable wife.'

"'Not to you, sir; nor to any one out of my own station. Do not think
of making a fool of yourself, just because there is nobody here to
compare with homely Peggy Walker.'

"He looked at me more particularly than he had ever done before. I
leaned my hands on the table, and squared my elbows, and spread my
great browned hand and red arms before him. He laughed, and said,
'Peggy, you are right; you are a worthy girl and a clever, and in the
sight of God are worth ten of me; but when I think of taking you home
and presenting you to my mother and sisters as Mrs. Brandon, it is
rather comical. As for anything else, you are too good a girl, and I
will say no more about it, only I wish you would marry Powell and be
done with it.'

"Well, Miss Jean, this was the beginning and the end of it with the
master; but I think that man Powell was my greatest temptation,
especially after Mr. Brandon's words. He really was a protection to me,
for he was always civil and respectful in his language to me, and there
was not one of the men who dared say the thing that would anger him.
But it fell out that I was removed from Barragong before I had given in
to Powell, though I'm not saying what might have happened if I had
stopped there for six months longer.

"The master had a friend, a Mr. Phillips, who lived twenty miles off,
who had more stock and more men on his station than we had at
Barragong;--a nice quiet gentlemanly man, who had done as silly a thing
as Mr. Brandon had half evened himself to. He had married out of his
degree, though he had more temptation to it than the other, for the
lassie was very bonnie, and very young, and I dare say he thought he
could learn her the ways of gentlefolks.

"Be that as it may, the lady, Mrs. Phillips, was expecting her inlying,
and her husband had trysted a skilled nurse from Melbourne, for a
doctor could not be had; but when the appointed time came, the nurse
had made some other engagement, and could not or would not come; nor
did she send a fit person in her place. There was not time to get any