e it, no other country
can show.

I was a great favourite, too, with old Miss Gertrude Talbot at the
castle. Her admiration and love for Sam and his wife was almost equal
to mine. So we never bored one another, and so, by degrees, gaining the
old lady's entire confidence, I got entrusted with a special mission of
a somewhat peculiar character.

The leading desire of this good old woman's life was, that her sister
Agnes should come back with her husband, the Major, and take possession
of the castle. Again, Alice could not be content, unless her father
could be induced to come back and take up his residence at Clere. And
letters having failed to produce the desired effect in both instances,
the Major, saying that he was quite comfortable where he was, and the
Captain urging that the English winters would be too vigorous for his
constitution; under these circumstances, I say, I, the CONFIDANT of the
family, within fifteen months of landing at Plymouth, found myself in a
hot omnibus with a Mahomedan driver, jolting and bumping over the
desert of Suez on my way back to Australia, charged to bring the old
folks home, or never show my face again.

And it was after this journey that the scene described in the first
chapter of this book took place; when I read aloud to them from the
roll of manuscript mentioned there, my recollections of all that had
happened to us during so many years, But since I have come back to
England, these "Recollections" have been very much enlarged and
improved by the assistance of Major Buckley, Agnes, and Captain
Brentwood.

For I succeeded in my object, and brought them back in triumph through
the Red Sea, across the Isthmus of Suez, and so by way of the
Mediterranean, the Bay of Biscay, the English Channel, Southampton
Water, the South-Western railway, and Alice's new dark-blue barouche,
safe and sound to Clere and the castle, where they all are at this
present speaking, unless some of them are gone out a walking.

As for Tom Troubridge and Mary, they are so exceedingly happy and
prosperous, that they are not worth talking about. They will come
either by the Swiftsure or the Norfolk, and we have got their rooms
ready for them. They say that their second child, the boy, is one of
the finest riders in the colony.

"You have forgotten some one after all," says the reader, after due
examination. "A man we took some little interest in. It is not much
matter though, we shall be glad when you have