t cause
may be shown for their attendance. They are necessary as porters to look
after her traps, as purveyors to fetch her milk and fruit, and so on.

Miss Ada may not unnaturally be a little timid at first, but she soon
gets over that, finding that these big, bearded men are a good deal more
timid of her. Some of them actually colour up when she looks at them.
She discovers that she is a wit; her little jokes being applauded
uproariously, and repeated by one of her bodyguard to another. Every eye
is upon her, gazing at her with undisguised admiration; and every ear is
humbly bent to catch the slightest whisper that falls from her lips.
Really, these bushmen are very nice fellows, after all, in spite of
their rough looks. Quite different from the affected young fops of the
city.

As the young lady journeys onward her train swells, like a snowball
gathering snow. Somehow or other, it seems that the whole district is
meditating a visit to the place that is her destination. And everybody
is so polite to her, so embarrassingly attentive, and so determined she
shall enjoy her trip, that she begins to think the bush is the most
delightful part of the habitable globe; while the scenery grows more and
more enchanting every minute.

By-and-by the end of the journey is reached. The settler's wife comes
out to meet her guest, while a long procession files up from the river,
actually quarrelling for the privilege of carrying Miss Ada's various
impedimenta. The ladies are embracing and kissing with effusion, to the
manifest discomfiture and perturbation of the crowd, who try to look
indifferently in opposite directions.

"_So_ good of you to come, dear, to these far away solitudes; so _kind_
of you, and so _disinterested_, for I'm sure there's nothing here to
attract you in the _least_!"

"Oh, I think you've got a _charming_ place! And the gentlemen have been
_so_ kind. I didn't mind the journey at _all_, I assure you. And, of
course, I would come to keep _you_ company, you poor, banished thing!"

Thus do these innocent creatures chatter to each other in their
hypocritical fashion. But the wife just glances slyly at her husband,
and he looks guiltily away at the far horizon; for the dear schemer has
been making a confidant of him, for want of a better.

And Miss Ada's tail makes itself at home, after the free hospitable
manner of the bush. And the men are received with greater unction than
ever on the part of their hostess;