ght have made short work of many a better man!

Eva Denison was her name, and she cannot have been more than nineteen
years of age. I remember her telling me that she had not yet come out,
the very first time I assisted her to promenade the poop. My own name
was still unknown to her, and yet I recollect being quite fascinated by
her frankness and self-possession. She was exquisitely young, and yet
ludicrously old for her years; had been admirably educated, chiefly
abroad, and, as we were soon to discover, possessed accomplishments
which would have made the plainest old maid a popular personage on board
ship. Miss Denison, however, was as beautiful as she was young, with the
bloom of ideal health upon her perfect skin. She had a wealth of lovely
hair, with strange elusive strands of gold among the brown, that drowned
her ears (I thought we were to have that mode again?) in sunny ripples;
and a soul greater than the mind, and a heart greater than either, lay
sleeping somewhere in the depths of her grave, gray eyes.

We were at sea together so many weeks. I cannot think what I was made of
then!

It was in the brave old days of Ballarat and Bendigo, when ship after
ship went out black with passengers and deep with stores, to bounce home
with a bale or two of wool, and hardly hands enough to reef topsails
in a gale. Nor was this the worst; for not the crew only, but, in many
cases, captain and officers as well, would join in the stampede to the
diggings; and we found Hobson's Bay the congested asylum of all manner
of masterless and deserted vessels. I have a lively recollection of our
skipper's indignation when the pilot informed him of this disgraceful
fact. Within a fortnight, however, I met the good man face to face upon
the diggings. It is but fair to add that the Lady Jermyn lost every
officer and man in the same way, and that the captain did obey tradition
to the extent of being the last to quit his ship. Nevertheless, of
all who sailed by her in January, I alone was ready to return at the
beginning of the following July.

I had been to Ballarat. I had given the thing a trial. For the most
odious weeks I had been a licensed digger on Black Hill Flats; and I had
actually failed to make running expenses. That, however, will surprise
you the less when I pause to declare that I have paid as much as four
shillings and sixpence for half a loaf of execrable bread; that my mate
and I, between us, seldom took more than a few