d now been a year married to the eldest of the Miss
Mitfords. His brother had been decidedly refused by Marion when he
proposed to her, much to the surprise of her father and mother, who had
seen from the frequent visits of their neighbour during the past year
how things were going with him, while Wilfrid had been quite indignant
at her rejection of his friend.

"Girls are extraordinary creatures," he said to his sister. "I had quite
made up my mind for the last six months that you and Bob were going to
make a match of it, and thought what a jolly thing it would be to have
you settled next to us. I am sure I do not know what you want more. You
have known him for three years. He is as steady as possible, and safe to
get on well, and as nice a fellow as I know."

"He is all that, Wilfrid, but you see I don't want to marry him. I like
him very much in the same way you like him, but I don't like him well
enough for that."

"Oh, I suppose you want a wandering prince in disguise," Wilfrid
grumbled. "That is the way with girls; they always want something that
they cannot get."

"My dear Wilfrid," Marion said with spirit, "when I take to lecturing
you as to whom you are to marry it will be quite time for you to take to
lecturing me; but until I do I cannot allow that you have any right in
the matter."

It was seldom indeed that brother and sister differed in opinion about
anything, and seeing a tear in Marion's eye Wilfrid at once gave in and
admitted himself to be wrong.

"Of course it is no business of mine, Marion, and I beg your pardon. I
am sure I should not wish for a moment that you should marry anyone but
the man that you choose for yourself. I should certainly have liked you
to have married Bob Allen, but, if you do not fancy him, of course there
is an end of it."

This was not the only offer that Marion had received during the year,
for there were several young settlers who would have been glad to have
installed her as the mistress of their homesteads; but they had each met
with the same fate that had now befallen Bob Allen.

The next time Mr. Atherton came back he said, "I have taken my last
ramble and gathered my last plant."

"What! are you going home?" Mrs. Renshaw exclaimed.

"Yes, I am going home," he said more seriously than he usually spoke. "I
have been away three years now, and have pretty thoroughly ransacked the
island. I have discovered nearly eighty new species of plants and two or
three ent