opened my mind to her, and she said I was right, and gave me a letter
to the agent, who was a far-away cousin of her own, and three pounds in
money forbye, to buy fitting things for the voyage; and she told me how
I was to send money home for the youngsters, and wrote a line to a
friend of hers that lived close to the Lowries, asking her to look
whiles to see that the bairns were well and thriving.
"It is not often that I greet, Miss Jean, but Miss Thomson twice
brought the tears to my eyes, first with her kindness when I left
Scotland, and again with her kindness when I came back, and brought
her, no the silver--I would not shame her with giving back what had
really been life and hope to myself and five orphan bairns--but some
curious birds that I had got up the country, that she sets great store
by. I told her how I had got on, and what had induced me to come back;
I told her that I never could pay back my debt to her, and would not
try to do it, but that if we prospered, there had been much of it her
doing; and she said she admired nothing so much as my resolution and
courage in going to Australia, until she admired still more my
resolution and self-denial in coming back. I do not think much of
flattery, Miss Elsie--they say it is very sweet to the young and the
bonnie--but these words of praise from a good woman like Miss Thomson
made my heart swell and my eyes overflow. You have been at Allendale,
Miss Jean; you must have seen the birds in the lobby."
Jane had been too much engrossed with her own affairs during her only
visit to Miss Thomson to observe Peggy's birds, but she drew a good
omen form the coincidence of Miss Thomson's assistance being given so
frankly to two women both in distress and in doubt.
"How did you like the voyage, Peggy?" asked Jane.
"It is queer how that voyage has faded out of my mind, and yet it was a
long one--over five months; they know the road better now, and do it
quicker. I was not more than four months coming back in a bigger ship.
I mind we had a storm, and all the women on board were awful feared,
and a boy was washed overboard, and there was some ill-blood between
the captain and the doctor; but all that I could think on was to get to
the end of the voyage, and make money to send home to the bairns.
"Well, to Melbourne we got at last, and a shabby place I thought it
looked; but the worst of all was, that such wages as had been spoken of
in the papers were not to be had a
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