But she, as knowing nothing was amiss, Gave him her fondest smile, her sweetest kiss. A fortnight after, or a little more, As at the Audit, weary of the bore, He sat, and of his future prospects thought, A letter in an unknown hand was brought. ’Twas from Macfarlane, and to let him know To South Australia they proposed to go. ‘Rich friends we have, who have advised us thus, Occasion offers suitable for us; Christie we take; whate’er she find of new, She’ll ne’er forget the joy she’s had with you; ’Tis an expensive pilgrimage to make, You’ll like to send a trifle for her sake.’ Nothing he said of when the ship would sail. That very night, by swift-returning mail, Ten pounds he sent, for what he did not know; And ‘In no case,’ he said, ‘let Christian go.’ He in three days would come, and for his life Would claim her and declare her as his wife. Swift the night-mail conveyed his missive on; He followed in three days, and found them gone. All three had sailed: he looked as though he dreamed; The money-order had been cashed, it seemed. The Clergyman, ‘This story is mere pain,’ Exclaimed, ‘for if the women don’t sustain The moral standard, all we do is vain.’ ‘But what we want,’ the Yankee said, ‘to know, Is if the girl went willingly or no. Sufficient motive though one does not see, ’Tis clear the grocer used some trickery.’ He judged himself, so strong the clinging in This kind of people is to kith and kin; For if they went and she remained behind, No one she had, if him she failed to find. Alas, this lawless loving was the cause, She did not dare to think how dear she was. Justly his guilty tardiness he curst, He should have owned her when he left her first. And something added how upon the sea, She perilled, too, a life that was to be; A child that, born in far Australia, there Would have no father and no father’s care. So to the South a lonely man returned, For other scenes and busier life he burned,— College he left and settled soon in town, Wrote in the journals, gained a swift renown. Soon into high society he came, And still where’er he went outdid his fame. All the more liked and more esteemed, the less He seemed to make an object of success. An active literary life he spent, Towards lofty points of public practice bent, Was never man so carefully who read, Whose plans so well were fashioned in his head, Nor one who truths so luminously said. Some years in various labours thus he passed, A spotless course maintaining to the last. Twice upon Government Commissions served With honour; place, which he declined, deserved. He married then,—a marriage fit and good, That kept him where his worth was understood; A widow, wealthy, and of noble blood. Mr. and Lady Mary are they styled, One grief is theirs—to be without a child. I did not tell you how he went before