be back in six months. And, after all, he
wasn't going at all. 'Well, I declare, if papa isn't down the walk
already,' said Jemima, looking out of the window.

'I don't think I shall go at all,' said Bagwax in a melancholy tone as
he went up-stairs to wash his hands.

The dinner was very pleasant; and as Curlydown and his guest drank their
bottle of port together at the open window, it was definitely settled
that Bagwax should reveal the mystery of the postage-stamp to Sir John
Joram at once. 'I should have it like a lump of lead on my conscience
all the time I was on the deep,' said Bagwax, solemnly.

'Conscience is conscience, to be sure,' said Curlydown

'I don't think that I'm given to be afraid,' said Bagwax. 'The ocean, if
I know myself, would have no terrors for me;--not if I was doing my
duty. But I should hear the ship's sides cracking with every blast if
that secret were lodged within my breast.'

'Take another glass of port, old boy.'

Bagwax did take another glass, finishing the bottle, and continued.
'Farewell to those smiling shores. Farewell, Sydney, and all her charms.
Farewell to her orange groves, her blue mountains, and her rich
gold-fields.'

'Take a drop of whitewash to wind up, and then we'll join the ladies.'
Curlydown was a strictly hospitable man, and in his own house would not
appear to take amiss anything his guest might say. But when Bagwax
became too poetical over his wine, Curlydown waxed impatient. Bagwax
took his drop of whitewash, and then hurried on to the lawn to join
Jemima.

'And you really are not going to those distant parts?'

'No,' said Bagwax, with all that melancholy which wine and love combined
with sorrow can produce. 'That dream is over.'

'I am so glad.'

'Why should you be glad? Why should a resolve which it almost breaks my
heart to make be a source of joy to you?'

'Of course you would have nothing to regret at leaving, Mr. Bagwax.'

'Very much,--if I were going for ever. No;--I could never do that,
unless I were to take some dear one with me. But, as I said, that dream
is over. It has ever been my desire to see foreign climes, and the
chance so seldom comes in a man's way.'

'You've been to Ostend, I know, Mr. Bagwax.'

'Oh yes, and to Boulogne,' said Bagwax, proudly. 'But the desire of
travel grows with the thing it feeds on. I long to overcome great
distances,--to feel that I have put illimitable space behind me. To set
my foot on shores divided fr