always used to look down on the colonial girls that our neighbours
married, and threatened to go home for a thoroughly accomplished wife;
and now one of that stamp has come out to him, and saved him time and
money. And Miss Phillips looks far more kindly on him than she ever did
on me."

"I do not call it merely good luck," said Elsie; "I think our affairs
are in wiser hands than our own."

"And that I should be grateful for that wise guidance, instead of idly
congratulating myself that things have turned out so well," said
Brandon. "I only know that I feel grateful, though I am in want of
words to express it. A man living alone, as I have done for so many
years, feels at a loss to speak about these matters. I need a dear good
woman like you by my side to teach me to open my heart, for I know I
never will be ashamed to speak to you as I feel--though I might stand
in some awe of a poetess, too."

"Don't speak about my poetry," said Elsie.

"Am I never to hear that song of Wiriwilta, in which I play such a
conspicuous part?" said Brandon.

"Oh, I have forgotten it, for the children got tired of it, and asked
for new songs and stories; it was never written down, and I never can
recollect my own verses. It shows that they are not genuine poetry, for
I have a tenacious memory for anything good of other people's. So, as
it is lost for ever, you may imagine it to have been as beautiful as
you please."

Chapter VIII.

Mrs. Phillips Is Relieved

Mrs. Phillips had been much alarmed at the sight of Mr. Brandon almost
immediately after Elsie and Mrs. Peck had gone out. He asked for Miss
Alice Melville as soon as he entered, saying he had a letter from her
sister and messages from the children for her, so that he would stay
with Mrs. Phillips till she returned, and sat down before the window
looking steadily out to catch the first sight of her. Not having her
mother's inventive turn, she was at a loss how to get rid of him.
Brandon must not see Mrs. Peck, and Elsie must be warned to say nothing
about her to him. She sat in torture for some time, and at last in
despair she asked him in an awkward embarrassed way to be good enough
to go for a nosegay for her, that she had been promised by a mutual
friend at Richmond, that she wished very much to have. He could not
help thinking something was wrong. Mrs. Phillips had always been very
inconsiderate to Alice, and no doubt she had been sent to town on some
errand that s