led the rest of the family to safety. One of the toddling survivors
still lives in New Zealand. Now, these are all the chances of marriage
I have had in my life. Dickens, in "David Copperfield," speaks of an
old maid who keeps the remembrance of some one who might have made her
an offer, the shadowy Pidger, in her heart until her death. I cannot
forget these two men. I am constantly meeting with the children,
grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren of the first. As for the
other, Andrew Murray gave me a fine landscape painted by John A.
Gilfillan as a slight acknowledgment of services rendered to his
newspaper when he left it to go to Melbourne, and it hangs up in my
sitting room for all to see. Mr. Gilfillan had a commission to paint
"The Landing of Capt. Cook" with the help of Portraits and miniatures
of the principal personages, and some sketches of his of Adelaide in
1849 are in the Adelaide Art Gallery. If the number of lovers has been
few, no woman in Australia has been richer in friends. This narrative
will show what good friends--men as well as women--have helped me and
sympathized in my work and my aims. I believe that if I had been in
love, especially if I had been disappointed in love, my novels would
have been stronger and more interesting; but I kept a watch over
myself, which I felt I knew I needed, for I was both imaginative and
affectionate. I did not want to give my heart away. I did not desire a
love disappointment, even for the sake of experience. I was 30 years
old before the dark veil of religious despondency was completely lifted
from my soul, and by that time I felt myself booked for a single life.
People married young if they married at all in those days. The single
aunts put on caps at 30 as a sort of signal that they accepted their
fate; and, although I did not do so, I felt a good deal the same.

I went on with daily teaching for some years, during which my father's
health declined, but before his death two things had happened to cheer