“‘Well,’ says Mrs. Bezzle, perking up. ‘It’s cruel to blame us for our struggles. What if I _have_ got nine, and six on ’em dependant on penny tarts and gingerbread for meat, drink, washing, and lodging, are they to be thrown in my teeth?’ “‘Emigrate,’ says I, six times more pointedly than before. “‘Where to?’ says she, ‘and how? Who can tell me that?’ “‘Go and lay your case before Parson Pullaway; he knows our M.P., and _he_ knows all about colonial places. Hasn’t his brother’s wife’s first cousin got one of them? He is Sub-under-Secretary to Lord Oxfordmixture, who has all the emigration settlements under his thumb.’ “‘I’ll think about it,’ says Mrs. Bezzle, quite struck-like,—for down came the scales on the counter like a shot, and the whole ounce of sugar-candy jumped into the little boy’s apron of its own accord. He had come for two penn’orth on pretence of a cough. ‘Besides, didn’t Mr. Pullaway christen seven out of my nine children, and not a penny of the fees owing for?’ “The last word as ever I spoke to Mrs. Bezzle was, ‘Emigrate!’ “Well, who would have thought it? Next week Mrs. Bezzle’s business was to sell. The week after, it was sold. The week after that, Mrs. Bezzle and her son Tom, and Tom’s wife, and Tom’s brother Sam, and Mrs. Bezzle’s eldest daughter, and little James, and Sarah, and Mary Ann, and the two little urchins, were on board a ship, at Liverpool, bound for Port Philip. That’s a year, come Michaelmas, ago. “But, drat ’em, why didn’t they pay the postage? Two-and-two is a consideration when butter (best fresh) is a rising a penny a pound every week. Not but what I was glad to hear from Mrs. Bezzle. Tom and his wife, and his brother Sam, are settled in a ‘run;’ and though there was some words I couldn’t make out, I dare say they didn’t explain how a ‘run’ could be a settlement. ‘Quite the reverse!’ as Mrs. Jenks said—(I have made it up with her, though she did insinuate the gingerbread nuts the mad bull made me buy gave her babby the cholera; and, bless it! it was only the teeth after all). Mrs. Bezzle has settled herself in the mutton-pie and cheesecake line, and has no fear of opposition; and as in Port Philip there is good digestions and plenty of ’em, pies is popular. Prices, too, is better,—penny pies being tuppence. James is on the ‘run,’ along with his eldest brother. Sarah an’t married yet,—for out of six offers, a young gal of seventeen has a right to be puzzled for six months or so, and more dropping in every week. Mary Anne is family governess to a rich copper-man, with plenty of stock—I suppose by that he is in the soup line. However, all is doing well. “Well, Mr. Conductor, it was all owing to that bull, wasn’t it? If I hadn’t improved that solemn occasion, where would Mrs. Bezzle, and four out of six of her helpless offspring have been by this time?—why, in the workhus.” LUNGS FOR LONDON.