untrymen for such information
as would be useful to him in obtaining employment. By some of these,
the propriety of advertising was suggested. Ward followed the
suggestion, and by so doing happily obtained, within a week after
his arrival, the offer of a good situation as overseer and gardener
upon a large farm fifty miles from the city. The wages were far
better than any he had received in England.

"Are you a single man?" asked the sturdy old farmer, after Ward had
been a day or two at his new home.

"No, sir; I have a wife in the old country," he replied, with a
slight appearance of confusion.

"Have you? Well, Thomas, why didn't you bring her along?"

"She was not willing to come to this country," returned Thomas.

"Then why did you come?"

"Because it was better to do so than to starve where I was."

"It doesn't matter about your wife, I suppose?"

"Why not?" Thomas spoke quickly, and knit his brows.

"If _you_ couldn't live in England, what is your _wife_ to do?"

"I shall send her half of my wages."

"Ah, that's the calculation, is it? But it seems to me that it would
have been a saving in money as well as comfort, if she had come with
you. Does she know any thing about dairy work?"

"Yes, sir; she was raised on a dairy farm."

"Then she's a regular-bred English dairy maid?"

"She is, and none better in the world."

"Just the person I want. You must write home for her, Thomas, and
tell her she must come over immediately."

But Thomas shook his head.

"Won't she come?"

"I cannot tell. But she refused to come with me, although I
repeatedly urged her. She must now take her own course. I felt, it
to be my duty to her as well as to myself, to leave England for a
better land; and if she thinks it her duty to stay behind, I must
bear the separation the best way I can."

"I hope you had no quarrel, Thomas?" said the farmer, in his blunt
way.

"No, sir," said Thomas, a little indignantly. "We never had the
slightest difference, except in this matter."

"Then write home by the next steamer and ask her to join you, and
she will be here by the earliest packet, and glad to come."

But Thomas shook his head. The man had his share of stubborn pride.

"As you will," said the farmer. "But I can tell you what, if she'd
been my wife, I'd have taken her under my arm and brought her along
in spite of all objections. It's too silly, this giving up to and
being fretted about a woman's whims and prejudices