The party turn into the hut. Miserable animals are bachelors in all countries; but most miserable in Bushland. A man does not know what a helpmate of the soft sex is in the Old World, where women seem a matter of course. But in the Bush, a wife is literally bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh--your better half, your ministering angel, your Eve of the Eden--in short, all that poets have sung, or young orators say at public dinners, when called upon to give the toast of "The Ladies." Alas! we are three bachelors, but we are better off than bachelors often are in the Bush. For the wife of the shepherd I took from Cumberland does me and Bolding the honour to live in our hut, and make things tidy and comfortable. She has had a couple of children since we have been in the Bush; a wing has been added to the hut for that increase of family. The children, I daresay, one might have thought a sad nuisance in England; but I declare that, surrounded as one is by great bearded men, from sunrise to sunset, there is something humanising, musical, and Christian-like, in the very squall of the baby. There it goes--bless it! As for my other companions from Cumberland, Miles Square, the most aspiring of all, has long left me, and is superintendent to a great sheep-owner some two hundred miles off. The Will-o'-the-Wisp is consigned to the cattle station, where he is Vivian's head man, finding time now and then to indulge his old poaching propensities at the expense of parrots, black cockatoos, pigeons, and kangaroos. The shepherd remains with us, and does not seem, honest fellow, to care to better himself; he has a feeling of clanship, which keeps down the ambition common in Australia. And his wife--such a treasure! I assure you, the sight of her smooth, smiling woman's face, when we return home at nightfall, and the very flow of her gown, as she turns the "dampers"[1] in the ashes, and fills the teapot, have in them something holy and angelical. How lucky our Cumberland swain is not jealous! Not that there is any cause, enviable dog though he be; but where Desdemonas are so scarce, if you could but guess how green-eyed their Othellos generally are! Excellent husbands, it is true--none better; but you had better think twice before you attempt to play the Cassio in Bushland! There, however, she is, dear creature!--rattling among knives and forks, smoothing the tablecloth, setting on the salt-beef, and that rare luxury of pickles, (the last pot in our store), and the produce of our garden and poultry-yard, which few Bushmen can boast of--and the dampers, and a pot of tea to each banqueter; no wine, beer, nor spirits--those are only for shearing-time. We have just said grace, (a fashion retained from the holy mother country), when, bless my soul! what a clatter without, what a tramping of feet, what a barking of dogs! Some guests have arrived. They are always welcome in Bushland! Perhaps a cattle-buyer in