ermit. Good morning."

"Good morning, sir; I hope I may see you happily married yourself some
of these days."

Sam laughed, "that would be a fine joke," he thought, "but why
shouldn't it be, eh? I suppose it must come some time or another. I
shall begin to look out; I don't expect I shall be very easily suited.
Heigh ho!"

I expect, however, Mr. Sam, that you are just in the state of mind to
fall headlong in love with the first girl you meet with a nose on her
face; let us hope, therefore, that she may be eligible.

But here is home again, and here is the father standing majestic and
broad in the verandah, and the mother with her arm round his neck, both
waiting to give him a hearty morning's welcome. And there is Doctor
Mulhaus kneeling in spectacles before his new Grevillea Victoria, the
first bud of which is just bursting into life; and the dogs catch sight
of him and dash forward, barking joyfully; and as the ready groom takes
his horse, and the fat housekeeper looks out all smiles, and retreats
to send in breakfast, Sam thinks to himself, that he could not leave
his home and people, not for the best wife in broad Australia; but then
you see, he knew no better.

"What makes my boy look so happy this morning?" asked his mother. "Has
the bay mare foaled, or have you negotiated James Brentwood's young
dog? Tell us, that we may participate."

"None of these things have happened, mother; but I feel in rather a
holiday humour, and I'm thinking of going down to Garoopna this
morning, and spending a day or two with Jim."

"I will throw a shoe after you for luck," said his mother. "See, the
Doctor is calling you."

Sam went to the Doctor, who was intent on his flower. "Look here, my
boy; here is something new: the handsomest of the Grevilleas, as I
live. It has opened since I was here."

"Ah!" said Sam, "this is the one that came from the Quartz Ranges, last
year; is it not? It has not flowered with you before."

"If Linnaeus wept and prayed over the first piece of English furze
which he saw," said the Doctor, "what everlasting smelling-bottle
hysterics he would have gone into in this country! I don't sympathise
with his tears much, though, myself; though a new flower is a source of
the greatest pleasure to me."

"And so you are going to Garoopna, Sam?" said his father, at breakfast.
"Have you heard, my dear, when the young lady is to come home?"

"Next month, I understand, my dear," said Mrs. Buckley. "When s