"What is your son-in-law by trade?" asked Mr. Dempster.

"Why, he ain't got no trade to speak of, but he's warehouseman to
Campbell and Co., in Melbourne, the merchants, you know," said Mrs.
Peck.

"Then he must have a good situation and regular payment--he ought not
to be so badly off," said Mr. Dempster.

"There's such expenses with a family in Melbourne, where there's much
sickness especially. A very decent, good-tempered fellow he is, and
don't spend his wages away from his home. Poor Mary! I well remember
the day she was married, and how pretty she looked in her white gown,
and how she says to me, 'Oh, my mother! I can't abear to leave you,
even for James,' and now she is agoing to leave all of us. And when
little Betsy was born, and I was a nursing of her, she looked up and
says she, 'Oh, mother! I don't think as I'm long for this world;' but I
roused her, and said she wasn't a-dying then, and my words was true,
for she was not going then; but now to think my being so far from her
and her so bad."

Then Mrs. Peck wiped her eyes energetically and sobbed a little. Mr.
Dempster seemed to be soft-hearted and simple-minded. She thought she
had made an impression, and she endeavoured to deepen it.

"I am a very old colonist. I have been in Australia this thirty year
and more, travelling about from place to place. When you and Mrs.
Frankland were talking about changes and ups and downs, I thought on a
many as I have seen in the other colonies. There's them as I remember
without a sixpence as is now rolling in gold. I don't know the Adelaide
gentry so well, but I reckon they chop and change just like the others.
It is very unlucky for me to be here just at this present time, for I
know of a many in Sydney that I might have applied to for a little
loan, and they'd have been glad to give me assistance; but,
unfortunately, I am on the Adelaide side, where nobody knows me.
There's the Hunters, of Sydney, that I was nurse in the family."

"And the Phillipses, of Wiriwilta, too, who I dare say, would be most
happy to help you if you were straitened on the Melbourne side," said
Mr. Dempster, drily. "Mr. Phillips is a more liberal man than Mr.
Hunter."

"It is not Mr. Hunter I'd look to, but his wife; she has the generous
spirit," said Mrs. Peck.

"The Hunters are at present in London--at least, Mr. Hunter and the
family are. Mrs. Hunter died four years ago," said Mr. Dempster.

"That's a pity. Oh, dear, dear! I am