Melrose to rough it in the wilds, while my
heart was full of thankfulness that I had moved to the wider spaces and
the more varied activities of a new and progressive colony. My dear old
teacher was still alive, though the school had been closed for many
years. She lived at St. Mary's with her elder sister, who had taught me
sewing and had done the housekeeping, but she herself was almost blind,
and a girl came every day to read to her for two or three hours. She
told me what a good thing it was that she knew all the Psalms in the
prose version by heart, for in the sleepless nights which accompany old
age so often they were such a comfort to her in the night watches. I
had sent her my two novels when they were published, "Clara Morison"
and "Tender and True." She would have been glad if they had been more
distinctly religious in tone. Indeed, the novel I began at 19 would
have suited her better, but my brother's insistence on reading it every
day as I wrote it somehow made me see what poor stuff it was, and I did
not go far with it. But Miss Phin was, on the whole, pleased with my
progress, and glad that I was able to go to see her and talk of old
times. How very small the village of Melrose looked! How little
changed! The distances to the neighbouring villages of Darnick and
Newstead, and across the Tweed to Gattonsville, seemed so shrunken. It
was not so far to Abbotsford as to Norwood. The very Golden Hills
looked lower than my childish recollection of them. Aunt Janet Reid
rejoiced over me sufficiently. "You are not like your mother in the
face, but, oh, Katie, you are like dear Mrs. David in your ways. How I
was determined to hate her when she came to Melrose first. I was not 13
and she was taking away the best of my brothers, the one that I liked
best; but it did not take long before I was as fond of her as of David
himself."

I also had the pleasure of visiting Mr. Murray, the parish
schoolmaster, who taught my three brothers, then retired, living with
his daughter, Louisa, an old schoolfellow at Miss Phin's. There was an
absurd idea current in 1865 that all visiting Australians were rich and
I could not disabuse people of that notion. Of all the two families of
Brodies and Spences who came out in 1839 there was only my brother John
who could be called successful. He was then manager of the Adelaide
branch of the English, Scottish, and Australian Bank. If it had not
been for help from the wonderful aunts from tim