be, as in the present case, by the highest personages
in the kingdom.

The society does not confine its exertions to
increasing the number and variety of birds and
animals on the Australian continent, but transfers
a portion of all it collects or breeds, to other
places. Not Iong ago, for example, it took
advantage of a vessel being sent to the Auckland
Islands in search of some shipwrecked sailors,
to send a number of goats, pigs, rabbits, and
fowls, for liberation there. Its gifts are extended
to nearly every European state, but especially to
Paris and London: the former city having
received twenty emus, twenty-two kangaroos,
twelve black swans, beside wombats, laughing
jackasses, geese, quails, and other birds: while
we have been favoured with a much greater
number and variety, in addition to upwards of
two hundred Murray codfish, and some specimens
of those taken from the Yarra, including
one, termed the Grouper, which is not likely to
conduce by its presence to the harmony of the
denizens of our rivers, if we may judge of its
voracity by the following list of articles found in
the stomach of a Grouper: "Two broken bottles,
a quart pot, a preserved milk-tin, seven medium-sized
crabs, a piece of earthenware triangular in
shape, and three inches in length, encrusted
with oyster-shells; a sheep's head, some mutton
and beef bones, and some loose oyster-shells."
With all these things in its stomach, this
voracious Grouper was still alive, notwithstanding
that it had the spine of a skate embedded
in its liver.

    MR. THOMPSON'S UMBRELLA.

"AUGUSTA, I wish you would practise
Chopin's march. Mr. Thompson likes music."

Oh! how sick I was of hearing about Mr.
Thompson! My poor aunt, she meant it very
kindly, of course, but she little knew how she
made me hate those single gentlemen whom she
so wished me to please. I was an orphan, and
had forty pounds a year, and my aunt's annuity
died with her; so I suppose her anxiety to see
me married was both commendable and natural,
but to me it was dreadful. Moreover, perhaps
because I was a proud girl, and perhaps, too,
because I was a foolish one, the mere fact of a
man, young or middle-aged—for only the old and
wedded were excluded—coming to the house on
my account, made him detestable in my eyes. I
should not wonder if that were not the reason
why I pleased none. I was said to be pretty—I
may say that now, alas! it is so long ago—but
plainer girls, with no greater advantages
than I had, went off at a premium in the
marriage market, and I remained Augusta Raymond,
uncared and unsought for. I did not care, not
I. I only lamented that aunt would worry both
these unfortunate gentlemen and me with vain
efforts to make them admire me, and make me
like them. She was my best friend, however,
and I loved her dearly. So I now sat down to
the piano and played Chopin's march, and
practised for the benefit of the devoted Mr.Thompson,
who was to come this evening, and who
little knew, poor fellow, he had been invited to
spend a week with us for the express purpose of
falling in love with his second cousin's niece. I
had not seen him since I was a child. He was
a young man then, tall, dark, and grave, and
already on the road to prosperity. He was a
rich man now—at least, rich for such a poor girl
as I was, but he was Mr. Thompson, and I hated
him; besides, he must be old, quite old.

I thought of all these things whilst I was
playing, and then I forgot them, for the divine
music bore me away, and music was a passion
to me then.

We lived in the country, and a small but
beautiful garden enclosed my aunt's cottage.
It was a low one, with broad rooms, a little dark,
perhaps, yet strangely pleasant. At least, they
seemed so to me. I dearly liked the room in
which I now sat playing. It was our best room,
but it was also our sitting-room. A central
table was strewn with books, some of which
were dear old friends, and others were pleasant
and new acquaintances. Flower-stands,
work-baskets, and delightful chairs, chairs made to
read or dream in, added to the attractions of
this apartment. I enjoyed it even as I played;
but then, to be sure, the windows were all open,
and every one gave me a glimpse of the green
garden with a patch of blue sky above its
nodding trees, and the sweet scent of the
mignonette came in with every breath of air.
Where are you now, pleasant room and green
garden? The ruthless hand of man has laid you
waste, and my eyes can see you no more. Is
there no home for lost places, no dreamland
like the Indian's hunting-ground, where the
things that have once been may enjoy a shadowy
existence? Are you really for ever gone and
lost, save when you come back every time a
woman, whose hair is turning grey, hears that
grand mournful music to which your pleasant
homeliness would seem so little akin?

"My dear! Mr. Thompson!" said my aunt's
voice, as I closed the instrument. I turned
round and saw him; tall, dark, grave, very
little altered, and not at all old. We had
expected him for dinner, and he had come for
luncheon: I forget how the mistake arose. As
he opened the garden gate, he met my aunt. They
heard me playing, and stood by one of the
windows to listen. When I ceased, they
entered the room, and it was then that, as I
said, I saw him.

I did not know it at the time, but I knew it
later; I liked him from that very moment. I
am not sure that every girl would have liked
.Mr. Thompson. He was decidedly good looking,
and he was both shrewd and pleasant; but
he had a quaint and abrupt manner, which was
apt to startle strangers. I liked it well,
however. I liked that eccentricity which never took
him too far, and that slight want of polish which
gave flavour to everything he said or did. I
liked all, excepting his umbrella. That I
detested. It was large, solid, massive, and