"Another glass of champagne," interrupted the incognita, growing comparatively loquacious. "Sapristi, c'est cossu, ça !"

"Those lovely features," continued Spoonington, wholly incompetent to appreciate the un-academical language of his guest; "let me implore you to take-”

"A little salad," abruptly interposed l'objet chéri, lifting up from over her mouth, as she spoke, the black lace attached below her mask, and thereby greatly facilitating her proposed attack on the eatables, "and plenty of the lobster. Dieu!" added she, after disposing of a liberal mouthful, "que c'est bon, le homard !"

"Beautiful creature!" thought Spoonington; how gracefully, with what fascinating naïveté she expresses her satisfaction!"

"You don't eat, monsieur," suddenly exclaimed the miniature Aphrodite, laying down her knife and fork, and holding her glass for some more Aï. "For my part, I could no more sit les bras croisés, with all these good things before me, than I could run backwards up the Colonne Vendome."

The idea of the speaker's ever arriving at the summit of the monument referred to, except by the aid of a windlass, was too preposterous to be entertained by any reflecting mind; but Sir Abel was too deeply occupied by his own enraptured thoughts and by the gray domino of his enchantress, to be capable of questioning the propriety of the simile.

"Quel amour de domino!" said he, at length, "how becomingly it sits! My favourite of all colours, too. Let me at least,” added he in a most transcendentally sentimental tone, "remove that odious mask." "Non pus!" exclaimed the fair one, interposing to prevent the betrayal of her incognito. "By and by perhaps, but not yet. Besides I have not half finished my supper. What are those queer little black things, by you?" added she, pointing to a plate of truffles, and impaling one on her fork before Sir Abel had time to answer. "Ah! que c'est mauvais ! J'aime cent fois mieux les haricots."

At this moment a small clock on the mantel-piece struck three.

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Already," exclaimed the Venus, starting up in amazement," and my poor chéri of a husband, who has been expecting me home this hour. Dieu de Dieu, what will he think!"

"Think!" said Spoonington.

what he thinks ?"

"Is it possible than you can care about

"Vous dites?" replied the lady, interrogatively; then without waiting for an answer continued, sotto voce, "I can't make out above half he says, but he rolls his eyes about like M. Séraphin's marionnettes. hardly help laughing though I am so sleepy.

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I can

Surely you are not going to leave me?" exclaimed Spoonington, as his companion rising from her chair, made a very decided movement towards the door. "Permit me at all events to escort you home-à la maisonn," he added by way of rendering himself more intelligible.

"Mais," hesitated Venus as coyly as she could, an effort wholly lost on her admirer, who was engaged in "agitating the communicator," or in other words in touching the bell.

"L'addition, garconn," said he to the "slave of the ring," whose obedience to the summons was as instantaneous as that of his namesake in the fairy tale. "L'addition," (Spoonington having got this term de

rigueur quite pat, a rare occurrence with him, repeated it twice, and with unusual emphasis).

Quick as thought appeared the desired document, and in another minute the baronet and his Queen of Beauty were seated side by side in the former's extremely well appointed brougham.

"Where shall I tell him to drive to ?" said he.

"I live in the Cité Vindé."

"WHERE?" cried Spoonington, doubting whether he had heard aright.

"In the Cité Vindé, near the Madeleine."

"Why, then we are neighbours!" exclaimed Sir Abel. bonheurr!"

"Quel "Monsieur lives there, also?" asked the lady, when the carriage was fairly in motion.

"Certainly," replied Spoonington. "Au première, douzieme cour." (The reader must not imagine from this that there are twelve courtyards attached to the building alluded to, Sir Abel having contracted, in common with many of his countrymen, the habit of pronouncing deux as douze.)

"When shall I see you again?" pursued our hero, the more eagerly, inasmuch as they were drawing near their journey's end; "to-morrrw, oh, promise me, to-morrow."

"Whenever you like," was the unexpected reply.

"At what hour might I--without being indiscreet-presume-" stammered out Sir Abel, more than half bewildered with joy.

"Any hour you please," said Venus after a moment's consideration as to the purport of his question. "I am up before seven every morning." "One glance then, only one, at that lovely face," exclaimed the enraptured baronet, again essaying to withdraw the mask, as the carriage passed through the grille of the Cité Vindé. This time the incognita offered no resistance; the silken strings yielded readily to his touch, and disclosed the goddess of his imagination, the Houri of his fancy, in the shape of our black-eyed and voluminous acquaintance, Madame Picot.

For a moment Sir Abel sat in speechless horror, an interval of which the little portress took advantage to open the door, and place herself once more on terra firmâ.

"Sacrrrrebleu!" at length shouted Spoonington, rolling the after the fashion of Citizen Caussidière. "C'était le portierre!"

"Who is as much obliged to Milor," said Madame Picot, curtseying and speaking very rapidly, as if to make up for the restraint so long put on her tongue, "for all his kindness and gallantry (great stress was laid on these two words), for his supper and carriage, as she is to her cousin Sophie (Rue Neuve St. Marc, Milor remembers), for so unexpectedly calling for her last evening with a billet de bal, and (here the speaker's eyes twinkled most maliciously) an 'amourr de domino.'"

MEN AND THINGS IN THE NEW WORLD OF AUSTRALIA.

PART IV.

ABOUT a fortnight had elapsed since the day when, as stated in my last, I was riding through the long, lazy little town called Maitland, on my way to the north-west. I had passed beyond what, in colonial phrase, are called the "Boundaries of Location;" that is to say—as I believe I am right in expounding-beyond the limits of the country which has been proclaimed into counties, and within which the government is willing to sell (anybody being willing to buy) the waste lands of the crown. In other words, I had got into the proper regions of the "squatters," where the lands were occupied, until recently, by no other right than the primitive one conferred by first possession. I say until recently, because I presume by this time, by virtue of a recent imperial statute, a "fixity of tenure" has been granted to our squatting friends, in the shape of a lease for years from her Majesty the Queen; whereby certain grave and solemn rights are conferred on these tenants in capite, such as would pass muster before even those awful personages "the judges of the land."

In these remote wilds the squatters have plenty of elbow room; for as their beeves and their sheep increase and multiply, they go forth in quest of more land. There is thus, as it were, a constant tendency among this new race of men to run away from civilisation; but the as constant inpouring of population from the parent country in some degree impedes or corrects it. There is presented, however, a scale of social retrogression sufficiently marked as you proceed from the old settled districts, until you find yourself at the ne plus ultra of British occupation.

There are some popular errors abroad with respect to the Australian squatters confining that term to the master-squatters. I can assure my readers that every one of these gentlemen was not brought up at Eton, or distinguished at the university. Among them are no doubt a fair proportion of well-bred young men, who have in some degree given a tone and character to the whole; but that whole does embrace people of almost every class of European society. It is indeed amusing to note the very various people who are to be found leading this nomade life in the wilds of a new country. Who may be the owner of this "station ?"-Two years ago a linendraper in the city of London. Who of this?—An adventurous young chemist. Who of that?-Served his articles to an attorney; and his father dying, leaving him a round sum in Consols, he resolved to cut sheepskin in Chancery Lane and clip fleeces in Australia. Who of that?—

An officer of the army.-Of that?-Ditto of the navy. Of that?-An English yeoman. Of this ?-A former underwriter at Lloyd's. Of this?

-A Highland laird's seventh son. And so you may go on. Imagine all these parties in their several walks in England, and then suddenly transport yourself to Australian Tartary, where you shall meet them after a season or two of bush-life! Remember that well-disciplined youth behind a counter in Oxford Street, his white cravat so scrupulously neat, his hair as well oiled and adjusted as one of Truefit's wigs-can that be the same individual who now wears a blue-baize shirt, with beard that would April.-VOL. LXXXV. No. CCCXL.

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become a dramatic bandit or a republican de la veille? And in what will you distinguish him from his next neighbour, twenty miles off, brought up in hereditary horror of trade? He rides as well, smokes as well, "slangs" as well, speaks quite as good English, and though his retrospections be not quite so fashionable, it must be a critical eye that detects anything less gentlemanlike in his demeanour.

The fact is, that, whatever the wide difference of origin, identity of present occupation, and the same wild scenes invoking the same combinations of ideas, have already stamped the whole squatting interest with the generic properties of a caste. It shows how soon men may unlearn the past. One of their peculiarities, amongst the younger of them, is their sailor-like love of an occasional lark. What are they to do? Living for months in the wilds, when they reach a town they are like the sailor coming to port after a long voyage. Their pent-up spirits seek a vent, and they indulge in all manner of eccentric follies-a source of actual enjoyment for the moment, and of retrospective pleasure hereafter, when, sailor-fashion, they yarn over the past.

Behold me now riding my grey nag. Before me is a wide expanse of nearly level country, slightly covered with grass and herbage, with occasional visitations of those eternal gum-trees. In the remote distance blue hills are rising above the horizon; not a cloud is to be seen; and the sun burns as it does in Syria. There was but little wind-what there was, warm, coming from the north-west- and occasionally it would raise up clouds of dust from the nearly bare and arid soil. Were we English Spaniards, we should sleep in the middle of the summer days in Australia; but not being Spaniards, but English, we brave them out to our great discomfort-riding, walking, "doing business," just as we would in latitude 53° north.

I was a stranger to the country I was now journeying in; but I was on a well-beaten track, and the information I had received at the place I had tarried at the night previous, led me to calculate that I had some ten miles to go before I reached the end of my day's journey. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon; the hottest time of the day. I had ridden some forty miles since morning, with but one short stoppage; but not pressing my horse, but either gently cantering or walking him, under ordinary circumstances there was mettle enough, and to spare, in him for the rest of his work. The heat, however, had become so unusually oppressive that I felt disposed, both on the poor beast's account and my own, to stop for an hour under the first shady clump of trees I could discover. I accordingly diverged a little from the track I had been pursuing, and directed my nag's head to a gently rising ground about a quarter of a mile on my right, where not only some trees promised me a shade, but where I fancied I detected something like a "water-hole”—the discovery of which is often as grateful to the Australian wanderer as to the traveller in an Arabian desert. I had scarcely thus changed my course the few points necessary to hit the spot in question, when I heard the sound of a loud-cracking whip, and presently I saw standing on the top of the elevated ground a man on horseback. We approached each other, but before we had time to come within hail I saw my impression verified. The horseman rode direct down to the pot I had imagined was the water-hole, and there descending, I saw only the man's head above the surrounding level. As I neared I found

the horse drinking out of a rushy pond, and one of your regular Australian stockmen on his back.

He was habited in fustian trousers and lace-up boots, with spurs, and a check shirt open at the neck, showing a skin as brown as a Carib's. He wore nothing over his shirt. He was a clean-shaved fellow, as I have noticed the stockmen often are, in distinction to their masters, who almost to a man affect the moustache and beard. He might be about thirty years of age. His features were sharp and angular. In his hand he had a short-handled whip, with a very long thong-the instrument with which he had just been making the air ring again. His horse was a very well-bred, bony animal, such as you would be sure was equal to a hard day's ride; and, as is not always the case with stockmen's horses, it appeared well groomed, among other indications of care in this respect, its mane and tail being properly trimmed and combed. Moreover, the snaffle and stirrup irons were of a good polish, and altogether I saw before me, as far as externals went, a most favourable specimen of the Australian stockman.

"This is fortunate," I said, pushing my steed down to the water, into which the panting animal thrust its nose nearly up to its eyes with its avidity to slake its thirst; "I thought I marked a water-hole."

"Yes, sir, this is one of the best holes within twenty miles of us; I have never known it dry during the five years I have been in this country. I thought I might have come across some of our bullocks hereabouts— you didn't happen to see any in your ride, sir?"

"Not a living thing the last thirty miles but a native dog and some crows."

"Well, this water-hole was my last chance. We are wanting to send off a dray to-morrow, and those rascally bullocks that we brought in yesterday broke out of the yard last night. It's all that thief of a Boxer, who breaks through everything; and the brutes knew they had a long journey before them as well as if they were Christians, and so made off, and are now hiding themselves. Really some of these old bullocks get as knowing as human creatures. I have been at every water-hole within twenty miles of the station since daylight, and I made pretty sure I should have started them at Dolly's Pond."

"Is that what you call this water-hole?"

"Yes, Dolly, the Brummagen shepherd-and a capital shepherd he was, though bred an operative, as he called himself-Dolly was murdered here by the blacks; but I made sure I should have found the bullocks here, the thieves. I have but one place left to look at, and that is on my way home." Pray, how far do you call it to Mr. Twiddy's station?"

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"Mr. Twiddy, that's my master; his station is about twelve miles from here."

"Then you are one of Mr. Twiddy's stockmen, I suppose?"

"I have been in his service since I arrived in the colony, in the ship Hyderabad, eight years ago last January; I am now his head stockman. You, sir, are the gentleman he has been expecting, I suppose?"

"I am glad he expects me; I feared he might not have received my letter."

"It was a chance he did, as your messenger was just the most drunken fellow we have; but he happened to be able to get no drink the last fifty miles, and so he arrived safe, letter and all. But if you have no objection,