know," said
Sylvia, as if such a condition of things was the most ordinary in
the world, "and if he misbehaves himself, she sends him back to the
road-gang."

The Reverend Mr. Meekin opened his mild eyes very wide indeed. "What
an extraordinary anomaly! I am beginning, my dear Miss Vickers, to find
myself indeed at the antipodes."

"Society here is different from society in England, I believe. Most new
arrivals say so," returned Sylvia quietly.

"But for a wife to imprison her husband, my dear young lady!"

"She can have him flogged if she likes. Danny has been flogged. But then
his wife is a bad woman. He was very silly to marry her; but you can't
reason with an old man in love, Mr. Meekin."

Mr. Meekin's Christian brow had grown crimson, and his decorous blood
tingled to his finger-tips. To hear a young lady talk in such an open
way was terrible. Why, in reading the Decalogue from the altar, Mr.
Meekin was accustomed to soften one indecent prohibition, lest
its uncompromising plainness of speech might offend the delicate
sensibilities of his female souls! He turned from the dangerous theme
without an instant's pause, for wonder at the strange power accorded to
Hobart Town "free" wives. "You have been reading?"

"'Paul et Virginie'. I have read it before in English."

"Ah, you read French, then, my dear young lady?"

"Not very well. I had a master for some months, but papa had to send
him back to the gaol again. He stole a silver tankard out of the
dining-room."

"A French master! Stole--"

"He was a prisoner, you know. A clever man. He wrote for the London
Magazine. I have read his writings. Some of them are quite above the
average."

"And how did he come to be transported?" asked Mr. Meekin, feeling that
his vineyard was getting larger than he had anticipated.

"Poisoning his niece, I think, but I forget the particulars. He was a
gentlemanly man, but, oh, such a drunkard!"

Mr. Meekin, more astonished than ever at this strange country, where
beautiful young ladies talked of poisoning and flogging as matters of
little moment, where wives imprisoned their husbands, and murderers
taught French, perfumed the air with his cambric handkerchief in
silence.

"You have not been here long, Mr. Meekin," said Sylvia, after a pause.

"No, only a week; and I confess I am surprised. A lovely climate, but,
as I said just now to Mrs. Jellicoe, the Trail of the Serpent--the Trail
of the Serpent--my dear young lady