ould have said, if she had insisted upon sleeping in the
same room with us. And yet I feared that she would carry her point, for
she is as determined a vixen as ever assumed the form of woman."

The matrimonial life of poor Barney was not a lengthy one; and I may as
well follow it to a close, while I am writing upon the subject. At his
request we paid him off, and hired another man to drive the second team.
He had money enough to commence housekeeping, or rather tent-keeping, on
a very respectable scale, and with the funds which he had left,
purchased a mining claim, nearly worked out to be sure, but still,
considerable sums of gold had been taken from it, and quite a number of
nuggets of fair size had been secured.

The claim was very near our store, so that our advice was frequently
required by poor Barney, who led rather a hard life of it, toiling as he
did all day under ground, in wet and cold places, and when night
arrived, half of the time he would have to get his own supper, his
amiable wife being on visits of privacy to people in the neighborhood.

For the first few weeks of their residence at Ballarat the ill-matched
couple did all of their trading at our store, until at length so many
stimulating luxuries were purchased by Maria, that Barney requested us
to refuse her credit, which, in compliance with his wishes, we did, and
received such a torrent of abuse from the wife for so doing, that we
wished her back to her old haunts, in Radcliff Highway, and had serious
thoughts of attempting to recover damages from the "Moral Emigration
Society" which exported her. For a woman with so fair a face, she had
the vilest tongue that I ever heard.

After the credit system was abolished, Maria transferred her favors to a
store on Gravel Pit Hill, where, for a time, she was quite a favorite,
and thrived wonderfully; but her husband got wind of her doings, and
threatened to shoot the first man that he saw taking improper liberties
with his property, and that rather dashed the spirits of the gallants,
for Barney was bold as a lion, and carried a pair of very good pistols
in his belt, in addition to a bowie knife of wondrous keenness.

The poor, depraved woman, finding that she was watched, and that her
male companions kept aloof, after the threat which Barney made, got up a
clandestine correspondence with a young fellow who was smitten with her
pretty face, and to put a stop to it Barney was obliged to break one of
his ri