poor thing, so I had no time to give Powell a word,
except just the message for Mr. Brandon.

"Mrs. Phillips was by no means an easy lady to nurse. I knew well how
strict old Tibbie Campbell, who used to nurse Mrs. Henderson, used to
be about what a lying-in woman should have to eat and drink, and what
care she took that she could catch no cold, and I thought I behoved to
be as particular with Mrs. Phillips; but she would not hear reason. She
said that such a climate as Scotland should be no rule for treatment in
Australia, and she thought she should know her own constitution best,
and what was likely to agree with her; so she would take no telling
from me. As for Mr. Phillips, he would always give her what she wanted
if she teased for it long enough, or if she began to greet, so she
carried her point in spite of my teeth. And, poor thing, she suffered
for it; for she first took the cold, and then the fever; she was out of
her senses for five weeks, and barely escaped with her life. It was a
weary nursing. Mr. Phillips was wonderful in a sick-room, and relieved
me greatly; but I had such an anxious life with the bairn as well as
the mother. He used to beg me, with tears in his eyes, to save the bit
lassie, if it was in my power, and the man's life seemed to hang on the
little one's. His eye was as sharp as a mothers'--sharper than most
mothers'--to notice if Emily looked worse or better. It was a novelty
to me to see such care and thought in a man, not but what it is well a
father's part to care for his own offspring, and to take trouble and
fatigue for them.

"Mr. Brandon, all the time that the mistress was lying between life and
death, was wondrous patient, and never made a complaint for the want of
me, though I am sure things were at sixes and sevens at Barragong; but
when Mrs. Phillips had got the turn, and was able to move about again,
he sent me a message to come back. Well, I had promised, no doubt--and
I had a far easier life at Mr. Brandon's than where I was, and nothing
had ever been said about wages by Mr. Phillips to me--but then the poor
little lassie, it seemed as much as her life was worth to leave her to
her mother and the lass Martha, for they had not the sense of an
ordinary woman between them, and my heart clung to the bit bairn with
great affection.

"One day Powell came over with the spring-cart to fetch me home, and I
was in a swither what to do, for ye don't just like to press services
on folk