which they were received by Aunt
M'riar. As, for instance, on the occasion just referred to, shortly
after Dave had gone on a visit to the tenant of the belted Earl, Uncle
Mo having gone away for an hour, to spend it in the parlour of The
Rising Sun, a truly respectable house where there were Skittles, and
Knurr and Spell. He might, you see, be more than an hour: there was no
saying for certain.

"I do take it most kind of you, ma'am," said Aunt M'riar for the
fiftieth time, with departure in sight, "to keep an eye on the child.
Some children nourishes a kind of ap'thy, not due to themselves, but
constitutional in their systems, and one can leave alone without fear by
reason of it. But Dolly is that busy and attentive, and will be up and
doing, so one may easy spoil a tuck or stand down an iron too hot if
called away sudden to see after the child."

The old woman seemed to Aunt M'riar to respond vaguely. She loved to
have the little thing anigh her, and hear her clacket. "All my own
family are dead and gone, barring one son," said she. And then added,
without any consciousness of jarring ideas:--"He would be forty-five."
Aunt M'riar tried in vain to think of some way of sympathizing, but was
relieved from her self-imposed duty by the speaker continuing--"He was
my youngest. Born at Macquarie Harbour in the old days. The boy was born
up-country--yes, forty-five years agone."

"Not in England now, ma'am, I suppose," said Aunt M'riar, who could not
see her way to anything else. The thought crossed her mind that, so far
as _she_ knew, no male visitor for the old tenant of the attics had so
far entered the house.

The old woman shook her head slowly. "I could not say," she said. "I
cannot tell you now if he be alive or dead." Then she became drowsy, as
old age does when it has talked enough; so, as Aunt M'riar had plenty to
see to, she took her leave, Dolly remaining in charge as per contract.

Aunt M'riar passed on these stray fragments of old Mrs. Prichard's
autobiography to Uncle Mo when he came in from The Rising Sun. The old
boy seemed roused to interest by the mention of Van Diemen's Land. "I
call to mind," said he, "when I was a youngster, hearing tell of the
convicts out in those parts, and how no decent man could live in the
place. Hell on Earth, they did say, those that knew." Thereupon old Mrs.
Prichard straightway became a problem to Aunt M'riar. If there were none
but convicts in Van Diemen's Land, and all