not that pleasant road,
That winds along the ferny brae?
Oh that's the road to fairy land,
Where thou and I this e'en must gae."

"And so you cannot remember England, Mr. Buckley?" says Alice.

"Oh dear, no. Stay though, I am speaking too fast. I can remember some
few places. I remember a steep, red road, that led up to the church,
and have some dim recollection of a vast grey building, with a dark
porch, which must have been the church itself. I can see too, at this
moment, a broad green flat, beside a creek, which was covered with
yellow and purple flowers, which mother and I made into nosegays. That
must be the place my father speaks of as the Hatherleigh Meadows, where
he used to go fishing, and, although I must have been there often, yet
I can only remember it on one occasion, when he emptied out a basket of
fish on the grass for me to look at. My impression of England is, that
everything was of a brighter colour than here; and they tell me I am
right."

"A glorious country," said Alice; "what would I give to see it?--so
ancient and venerable, and yet so amazingly young and vigorous. It
seems like a waste of existence for a man to stay here tending sheep,
when his birthright is that of an Englishman: the right to move among
his peers, and find his fit place in the greatest empire in the world.
Never had any woman such a noble destiny before her as this young lady
who has just ascended the throne."

But the conversation changed here, and her Majesty escaped criticism
for the time. They came to an open space in the forest, thickly grown
with thickets of bracken fern, prickly acacia, and here and there a
solitary dark-foliaged lightwood. In the centre rose a few blackened
posts, the supports of what had once been a hut, and as you looked, you
were surprised to see an English rose or two, flowering among the
dull-coloured prickly shrubs, which were growing around. A place, as
any casual traveller would have guessed, which had a history, and Sam,
seeing Alice pause, asked her, "what old hut was this?"

"This," she said, "is the Donovans' old station, where they were burnt
out by the blacks."

Sam knew the story well enough, but he would like to hear her tell it;
so he made believe to have heard some faint reports of the occurrence,
and what could she do, but give him the particulars?

"They had not been here a year," she said; "and Mrs. Donovan had been
confined only three days; there was not a soul on