al, and had no
prospects at home. He and Alice were quietly married, three months
after her father's death, and had sailed a week later for New South
Wales; where, as land could be taken up at a nominal price, it was
thought that her little fortune would be ample to start them
comfortably. All this, however, Reuben did not learn until some
time later.

After chatting for a short time, he returned to the camp fire.

"This is very awkward, Mr. Barker," Mrs. Donald said; "do you know
that Captain Whitney was, at one time, gardener's boy to our
father?"

"Oh, Alice!" her sister exclaimed, "what difference can that make?"

"It seems to me," Mrs. Donald said, "that it makes a very great
difference. You know mamma never thought well of him, and it is
very awkward, now, finding him here in such a position; especially
as he has laid us under an obligation to him.

"Do you not think so, Mr. Barker?"

"I do not pretend to know anything about such matters, Mrs.
Donald," Mr. Barker said bluntly; "and I shouldn't have thought it
could have made any difference to you, what the man was who had
saved you from such a fate as would have befallen you, had it not
been for his energy. I can only say that Captain Whitney is a
gentleman with whom anyone here, or in the old country, would be
glad to associate. I may say that when he came here, three or four
months ago, my friend Mr. Hudson--one of the leading men in the
colony--wrote to me, saying that Captain Whitney was one of his
most intimate friends, that he was in every respect a good fellow,
and that he himself was under a lifelong obligation to him; for he
had, at the risk of his life, when on the way out, saved that of
his daughter when she was attacked by a mad Malay at the Cape.

"More than that, I did not inquire. It was nothing to me whether he
was born a prince, or a peasant."

Mrs. Donald coloured hotly, at the implied reproof of Mr. Barker's
words. She had always shared her mother's prejudices against Reuben
Whitney, and she had not been long enough, in the colony, to become
accustomed to the changes of position which are there so frequent.

"You do not understand, Mr. Barker," she said pettishly. "It was
not only that he was a boy employed in the family. There were other
circumstances--"

"Oh, Alice!" Kate broke out, "how can you speak of such things?
Here are we at present, owing more than our lives to this man, and
you are going now to damage him by raking up th