bushman, and have been out of practice for many years,"
said Mr. Brandon.

In spite of Elsie's being an admirable dancer, she was too much excited
to do her best, and the stranger made no great figure in his first
debut in that line. Miss Rennie was inwardly rejoicing that she had
herself got rid of him.

"What part of Australia do you come from?" asked Elsie, in the first
pause.

"From Victoria, as it is called now. It was called Port Phillip when I
went there."

"Have you been long in the colony?"

"A long time--long enough for all my friends to forget me. But yet I
need make no complaint; they have all been very kind; but I think I am
entitled to a spell now."

"To a what?" asked Elsie, to whom the term was new.

"To a rest, or rather a fling--a holiday. Ah! Miss Melville, you can
have no idea what a rough life I have led for many years. You cannot
fancy how delightful, how perfectly beautiful it is to me to be in such
society as this after the Australian bush."

Miss Melville had a better idea than he fancied. It is curious to meet
people as strangers of whom you know a great deal, and when Elsie
looked at the very gentlemanly man beside her, whose dress was
perfectly fashionable, whose air and mien were rather distinguished,
and whose language, in spite of a few colonial colloquialisms, had the
clear, sharp tone and accent which agreeably marks out an educated
Englishman among an assembly of Scotchmen, and recollected the
description of his dress and habitation which Peggy had given, and the
scenes and conversation which she had narrated, she was almost afraid
of betraying her knowledge by her countenance.

"Have you been long home from Australia?" she asked, as a safe question.

"A few months, and am enjoying it intensely."

"And what brings you to Scotland? I suppose your relations are all
English?"

"Oh, an Australian thinks he ought to see the whole of Britain, when he
can visit it so seldom. A man is treated with contempt on his return if
he has not seen the Cumberland lakes and the Scottish Highlands. But I
have relations in Scotland besides;--the old lady sitting by Mrs.
Rennie in black MOIRE (is it that you call it?) is a sort of aunt of
mine, and is connected in some inexplicable way with the Rennies. Your
Scotch cousinships are an absolute mystery to me; it is a pity I cannot
understand them, for I am indebted to them for a great deal of
hospitality and kindness, of which this is one of t