e."

"Charge, Mr Commissioner! Charge enough, I'm sure! Why, I can't get
any one to mind a word that I say."

"Then, I am sure, sir, the fault must be wholly or for the most part
your own.--Officer, remove him."

"Has no one anything more definite to complain of?" he again asked,
looking round the assembly, which by this time had begun to thin, as it
became obvious to all present that no attention would be given to mere
vague grumblings.

"I'm sure it's very hard," sighed a knot of young ladies, who had
listened from the outside to what had been going on, and were afraid to
speak out more plainly. "We shall be moped to death if we're kept here
any longer," muttered one or two fast young men, shrugging their
shoulders. But to these remarks the commissioner turned a deaf ear; and
no one coming forward to lodge any distinct charge against another, the
court broke up, and the commissioner proceeded to make a tour of
inspection among the islanders.

He found, as he had indeed expected to find, that the necessity for
exertion, and the peculiarity of the circumstances in which they were
now placed, had already got rid of a good deal of the selfishness which
had only formed a sort of crust over the characters of many who, in the
main, were not without kind and generous feelings; so that the looking
after the due supply of provisions, and the cooking of them and serving
them to the different families, had been cheerfully undertaken by a duly
organised body of young and middle-aged workers of both sexes,--the
result of which was, not only an improvement in character in the workers
themselves, but also a drawing forth of expressions of gratitude from
some who formerly took all attentions as a right, but now had been made
to feel their dependence on their fellows. And it was pleasant to see
how cordially working men and women were united in striving for the good
of the community in conjunction with those who had hitherto occupied a
higher social position than themselves.

Some, indeed, of the lower orders, whose tastes had been of an utterly
low and degraded cast, had been summarily ejected from the island after
they had more than once endangered the lives and stores of the islanders
in their brutal drunken sprees. They had talked big, indeed, and made
at first a show of resistance; but the general body of the exiles had
authorised a powerful force of young and middle-aged men to take them
into custody, and convey them