us.
Needlework was of supreme importance, certainly, but during the hour
and a half every day, Saturday's half-holiday not excepted, which was
given to it by the whole school at once (odd half-hours were also put
in), the best readers took turns about to read some book selected by
Miss Phin. We were thus trained to pay attention. History, biography,
adventures, descriptions, and story books were read. Any questions or
criticisms about our sewing, knitting, netting, &c., were carried on in
a low voice, and we learned to work well and quickly, and good reading
aloud was cultivated. First one brother and then another had gone to
Edinburgh for higher education than could be had at Melrose Parish
School, and I wanted to go to a certain institution, the first of the
kind, for advanced teaching for girls, which had a high reputation. I
was a very ambitious girl at 13. I wanted to be a teacher first, and a
great writer afterwards. The qualifications for a teacher would help me
to rise to literary fame, so I obtained from my father a promise that I
should go to Edinburgh next year; but he could not keep it. He was a
ruined man.

CHAPTER II.

TOWARDS AUSTRALIA.

Although my mother's family had lost heavily by him, her mother gave us
500 pounds to make a start in South Australia. An 80-acre section was
built for 80 pounds, and this entitled us to the steerage passage of
four adults. This helped for my elder sister and two brothers (my
younger brother David was left for his education with his aunts in
Scotland), but we had to have another female, so we took with us a
servant girl--most ridiculous, it seems now. I was under the statutory
age of 15. The difference between steerage and intermediate fares had
to be made up, and we sailed from Greenock in July, 1839, in the barque
Palmyra, 400 tons, bound for Adelaide, Port Phillip, and Sydney. The
Palmyra was advertised to carry a cow and an experienced surgeon.
Intermediate passengers had no more advantage of the cow than steerage
folks, and except for the privacy of separate cabins and a pound of
white biscuit per family weekly, we fared exactly as the other
immigrants did, though the cost was double. Twice a week we had either
fresh meat or tinned meat, generally soup and boudle, and the biscuit
seemed half bran, and sometimes it was mouldy. But our mother thought
it was very good for us to endure hardship, and so it was.

There were 150 passengers, mostly South Austral