as milking,
feeding stock, cleaning, and so forth.

We began the day at five o'clock in the summer, and six in the winter,
and by eight at night all lights were out. We had lessons every day;
and there, oddly enough, in school, the cane was adjudged necessary,
as an engine of discipline, and used rather freely on our hands--hands,
by the way, which were apt at any time to be a good deal
chipped and scratched, and otherwise knocked about by our outdoor
work. So far as I remember our schooling was of the most primitive
sort, and confined to reading aloud, writing from dictation, and
experimenting with the first four rules of arithmetic. History we did
not touch, but we had to memorise the names of certain continents,
capitals, and rivers, I remember.

All this ought to have been the merest child's play for me; it
certainly was a childish form of study. But I did not appear to pick
up the trick of it, and I remember being told pretty frequently to
'Hold out your hand, Nicholas!' I had a clumsy knack of injuring my
finger-tips, and getting splinters into my hands, in the course of
outdoor work. The splinters produced little gatherings, and I dare say
this made penmanship awkward. I know it gave added terrors to the
canings, and, too, I thought it gave added zest to Sister Agatha's use
of that instrument in my case. Unfortunately for me Sister Agatha, and
not the mild-eyed Sister Mary, was the schoolmistress.

It may be, of course, that I lay undue stress upon the painful or
unpleasant features of our life at the Orphanage, because I was
unhappy there, and detested the place. But certainly if I could recall
any brighter aspects of the life there I would set them down. I do not
think there were any brighter aspects for me, at all events. I not
only had no pride in myself here; I took shame in my lot.

On the first Sunday in each month visitors were admitted. Any one at
all could come, and many local folk did come. They made it a kind of
excursion. I was glad that our devotions kept us a good deal out of
the visitors' way, because, especially at first, I had a fear of
recognising among them some one of the handful of people in Australia
whom I might be said to have known--fellow-passengers by the
_Ariadne_. The thought of being recognised as an 'inmate' by Nelly
Fane was dreadful to me; and even more, I fancy, I dreaded the mere
idea of being seen by Fred-without-a-surname. I pictured him grinning
as he said: 'Hallo! you