My last letter from Mrs. Oldcastle, written no more than a month ago--the mail service to Australia is improving--tells me that the park in London is looking lovely, all gay with spring foliage and blooms. She says that unless I intend being rude enough to falsify her prophecy, I must now be preparing to pack my bags and book my passage home. Home! Well, Ash, whose father like himself was born here, calls England 'Home,' I find. This is one of the most lovable habits of the children of our race all over the world. But obviously it would be a foolish and stultifying thing for me to think of leaving my hermitage. I am not rich enough to indulge in what folk here call 'A trip Home.' And as for finally withdrawing from my 'way out,' and returning to settle in England, how could such a step possibly be justified upon practical grounds? The circumstances which led me to leave England are fundamentally as they were. Mrs. Oldcastle-- But all that was thoroughly thought out before she left the _Oronta_ at Adelaide; and to-day I am less--less able, shall I say, than I was then? It is singular that these few days in bed should have stolen so much of my strength. The mere exertion, if that it may be called, of writing these few lines leaves me curiously exhausted; yet they have been written extraordinarily slowly for me. My London life made me a quick writer. I wonder if leisure and ease of mind would have made me a good one! I shall lay these papers aside for another day. Perhaps even for two or three days. Blades has kindly moved my bed for me to the side of the best window, which faces north-east; in the Antipodes, a very pleasant aspect. I shall not actually 'go to bed' again in the day-time, but I think I will lie on the bed beside that open window. Sitting upright at the table here I feel, not pain, but a kind of aching weakness which I escape when lying down. And yet, though not worried about it, I am rather sorry still farther to neglect this desultory task of mine, even for a day or two. The tree-tops are tossing bravely in the westerly wind this morning, and it is well that my banana clump has all the shelter of the gunyah, or its graceful leaves would suffer. The big cabbage palm outside the verandah makes a curious, dry, parchment-like crackling in the wind. But the three silver tree-ferns have a cool, swishing note, very pleasing to the ear; while for the bush trees beyond, theirs is the steady music of the sea on a sandy beach. I fancy this wind must be a shade too boisterous to be good for Blades's orange orchard. At all events it brings a strong citrus scent this way, after bustling across the side of Blades's hill.