e here," said Sam; "draw one of these pieces of grass out of my
hand. If you draw the longest piece ask her at once. Will you abide by
this?"

He said "yes," and drew--the longest piece.

"That is well," said Sam. "And now no more of this at present. I will
sling this poor little fellow in my blanket and carry him home to his
mother. See, Cecil, what is Rover at?"

Rover was on his hind legs against the tree, smelling at something.
When they came to look, there was a wee little grey bear perched in the
hollow of the tree.

"What a very strange place for a young bear!" said Cecil.

"Depend on it," said Sam, "that the child had caught it from its dam,
and brought it up here. Take it home with you, Cecil, and give it to
Alice."

Cecil took the little thing home, and in time it grew to be between
three and four feet high, a grandfather of bears. The magpie protested
against his introduction to the establishment, and used to pluck
billfulls of hair from his stomach under pretence of lining a nest,
which was never made. But in spite of this, the good gentle beast lived
nigh as long as the magpie--long enough to be caressed by the waxen
fingers of little children, who would afterwards gather round their
father, and hear how the bear had been carried to the mountains in the
bosom of the little boy who lost his way on the granite ranges, and
went to heaven, in the year that the bushrangers came down.

Sam carried the little corpse back in his blanket, and that evening
helped the father to bury it by the river side. Under some fern trees
they buried him, on a knoll which looked across the river, into the
treacherous beautiful forest which had lured him to his destruction.

Alice was very sad for a day or two, and thought and talked much about
this sad accident, but soon she recovered her spirits again. And it
fell out, that a bare week after this, the party being all out in one
direction or another, that Cecil saw Alice alone in the garden, tending
her flowers, and knew that the time was come for him to keep his
bargain with Sam and speak to her. He felt like a man who was being led
to execution; but screwed his courage to the highest point, and went
down to where she was tying up a rose-tree.

"Miss Brentwood," he said, "I am come to petition for a flower."

"You shall have a dozen, if you will," she answered. "Help yourself;
will you have a peony or a sunflower? If you have not made up your
mind, let me recommend a