on. Their frank acknowledgment of
the early struggles which they had had with fortune, the hearty manner
in which they enjoyed the prosperity they had earned, and their kindly
feeling towards each other, made Jane have a favourable impression of
colonial people. Mr. Phillips had become acquainted with several people
from other colonies than Victoria, partly on board ship, and partly
from other introductions. A curious and ignorant suspicion that somehow
all Australians have a sort of convict origin, made it more difficult
at that time for them than for retired Indians to get into general
society. There was no nice distinction drawn between the different
colonies; between New South Wales and Victoria, or South Australia and
Tasmania in those days--a slight savour of Botany Bay was supposed to
hang about them all. But they formed a pleasant little clique of their
own, less exclusive than most cliques, and generally disposed to hold
up each one his own particular colony as preferable to the others. They
might contrast it unfavourably with Britain, but as compared with the
other colonies, it ought to bear the palm.

Elsie felt the want of this intelligence and this variety of character
that Jane described to her so minutely in her frequent letters, and
regretted that she could write nothing interesting in return. When she
came home after a long day's work, she thought she ought to try to keep
up a little of her sister's discipline with the Lowries, and went over
their lessons with them. Tom used to bring to her the most puzzling
questions, which she thought she ought to be able to answer, and made
great efforts to do so; but instead of the intellectual work refreshing
her after the sedentary needlework, she felt all the more exhausted by
it. As for her poetry, she appeared to be unable to write a line, and
though she sometimes could read an old book, she seemed quite unfit to
pay attention to anything new.

She missed the long walks she had daily taken in Jane's pleasant
company. It was not far from Peggy's house to Mrs. Dunn's place of
business, and it was a very monotonous walk. The white regular houses,
all of one size and height, with their thousands of windows exactly on
the same model, seemed always staring her out of countenance, and made
her feel depressed even in the early morning. She felt the keen
piercing east winds of an Edinburgh spring as she had never done at
Cross Hall, where they were sheltered from them