So, as I have said, Miss Fairweather received sixteen offers that day. In point of fact she took all hearts by storm. Not a man in the Kaipara who would not have laid down and died for her. Not a bachelor among us who would not have felt exalted to the seventh heaven if he could have won her for his wife. But I dare say no more on this topic, and no more about the dear little beauty either, lest the too fortunate and ever-to-be envied gentleman, who now calls himself her husband, should come after me with his stock-whip. When the sun has set and evening has come, supper over, we sit in the lamp-lit drawing-room, enjoying the sweet intoxication of the ladies' presence. Or we lounge on the verandah outside the open windows, listening to the chat within, hearing around us the whispers of the forest, or the ripple and risp of the moonlit river, gazing at the profound shadows of the wooded ranges opposite, and inhaling the fragrant sweets of the sleeping garden. Peaceful and silent is that starlit night in the bush. Then, it being Sunday, the Member gives us service. And as the piano sounds, and we all join in singing the 23rd Psalm-- "In pastures green, He leadeth me, The quiet waters by," I think, that to even the most irreligious or most careless among us, the words, under the influences of our situation, come fraught with homely inspiration. Later, we are rowing back home with the tide. But we carry with us renewed hope and energy for our daily toil; for we have had, as it were, a foretaste of what is to be ours, some day, not so very far hence. We, too, shall have a home like that, as a reward for years of toil and hardship. And, God willing, it shall be graced for each of us with a wife like--_her_. CHAPTER XII. A PIG-HUNT. It is a beautiful morning in March, when an unusually large party assembles at "our shanty." The sun is just rising, and is not yet visible above the sheltering ranges which hem in the central flat that forms the farm. The sky is cloudless, the air still and fragrant with the odours of the awakening woods. Day-dawn is always the most beautiful time in New Zealand. It is especially so on this occasion, for a few showers had refreshed the thirsty earth on the previous day; and to us, as we emerge from our blankets eager with expectation, all Nature seems to wear a fresher and more blooming aspect. Half a mile below the shanty rolls the river, broad and blue, while the wooded shore opposite seems scarcely a stone's throw distant. The smoke curls lazily up from the fire within the shanty, where men are breakfasting and girding themselves for the fray.