LITMIR.BIZ

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consequences of their position, now within the tropics, and daily drawing nearer to the equator; but he only succeeded in agitating the mind of the old woman, without enlightening her.

      "God help us!" she exclaimed. "Nigher and nigher to the sun! It's downright temptation and wickedness, my dears; and my thought is, one ought to stay where it has pleased Him to plant us. And think ye, Master Arthur, we shall all turn black, like them niggers we saw in London streets."

      "No; certainly not, nurse," answered Arthur. "It requires hundreds of years, under a tropical sun, to change the color of Europeans. Besides, the negroes, although we are all children of Adam, are of a distinct race from us. We are certainly not, like the thick-lipped negroes, the descendants of Ham."

      "Likely he had been the plainest of Noah's family," said Jenny, "for beauty runs in the blood, that I'll stand to," continued the attached nurse, looking round with complacency on her handsome young nurslings.

      To the young voyagers there was an indescribable charm in the novelties which the sea and the air offered to them in the tropical region they had now entered. Now for the first time they beheld the flying-fish rise sparkling from the waves, to descend as quickly; escaping for a short time from its enemies in the waves to expose itself to the voracious tribes of the air, who are ready to dart upon it. And sometimes the elegant little Stormy Petrel, with its slender long legs, seemed to walk the waters, like the fervent St. Peter, from whom it derives its name.

      "But is not this bird believed to be the harbinger of storms?" asked Margaret of her father, as he watched with delight the graceful creature he had so often desired to behold.

      "Such is the belief of the sailors," answered he, "who have added the ill-omened epithet to its name. It is true that the approach, or the presence, of a gale, has no terror to this intrepid bird, the smallest of the web-footed tribe. It ascends the mountainous wave, and skims along the deep hollows, treading the water, supported by its expanded wings, in search of the food which the troubled sea casts on the surface:

      'Up and down! up and down!

      From the base of the wave to the billow's crown,

      Amidst the flashing and feathery foam,

      The Stormy Petrel finds a home,'

      as a poet who is a true lover of nature has written. Yet it is not always the harbinger or the companion of the storm, for even in the calmest weather it follows a vessel, to feed on the offal thrown overboard, as fearless and familiar in the presence of man as the pert sparrow of London."

      "Here, papa!" cried Hugh, "here is a new creature to add to your collection. I know him at once, – the huge Albatross."

      With the admiration of a naturalist, Mr. Mayburn looked on the gigantic bird, continuing its solemn majestic flight untiringly for hours after the ship, its keen eye ever on the watch for any floating substance which was thrown from the vessel, and then swooping heavily down to snatch the prize voraciously, and circling round the ship, again to resume its place at the wake.

      "I see now," said he, "why Coleridge wrote, —

      'The Albatross did follow,

      And every day, for food or play.

      Came to the mariner's hollo!'

      But the poet mistook the habits of the bird entirely when he added, that 'on mast or shroud it perched.' The difficulty of expanding its wing of five joints, so immensely long, would impede its rising from the mast of a ship; it scrambles along the waves before it can rise above them; and it has been well said, 'The albatross is the mere creature of the wind, and has no more power over itself than a paper kite or an air balloon. It is all wing, and has no muscle to raise itself with, and must wait for a wind before it can get under sail.'"

      The family were assembled on deck in the close of the evening, after the fervid heat of an equatorial sun, and they beheld with enjoyment the wonders of the deep; but the old nurse seemed disturbed and awe-struck.

      "Every thing seems turned topsy-turvy here," said she. "Days far hotter nor ever I mind them, and May-day not come; fishes with wings, flying as if they were birds, and birds walking atop of the water, as if it were dry land. It's unnatural, Miss Marget, and no good can come on it, I say."

      "Ah! if you were but going with us, Mrs. Wilson," said Charles Deverell; "then I would engage you should see wonders. You should see beasts hopping about like birds, and wearing pockets to carry their young ones in; black swans and white eagles; cuckoos that cry in the night, and owls that scream by day; pretty little birds that cannot sing, and bees that never sting. There the trees shed their bark instead of their leaves, and the cherries grow with the stone outside."

      "Now, just hold your tongue, Mr. Charles," answered nurse, angrily. "Your brother would scorn to talk such talk; but you're no better than Master Gerald, trying to come over an old body with your fairy stories."

      "It is quite true, Mrs. Wilson," said Emma Deverell, "and I wish you were all going with us into this land of enchantments. Then, Margaret, dear Margaret, how happy we should be. You should be queen, and we all your attendant sylphs, and

      'Merry it would be in fairy-land,

      Where the fairy birds were singing.'"

      "Merry for you, little wild goose," said her brother Edward; "but Charles has told you the fairy birds do not sing; and our sylph-life will be one of hard labor for many months before we make our fairy-land and court lit to receive our queen. Then we must try and lure her to us. How shall we contrive it, Emma?"

      Margaret smiled and shook her head. "Too bright a dream," said she, "to be safely indulged in. But you must tell us all you propose to do, and we will watch your progress in fancy."

      "Oh, do tell us all about it, Edward," said Hugh. "But, first of all, make a dot upon my map, that we may know where you are when we come to seek you."

      "Very prudent, Hugh," answered Edward, "though I doubt the accuracy of my dot on this small map; but I suppose I shall not be more than a hundred miles wrong, and that is nothing in the wilds of Australia."

      "But I see you will be close on this great river that falls into the Darling," said Hugh; "so if we only follow up the rivers, we must find you."

      "You would not find that so easy a task as it seems, my boy," replied Edward. "Neither are we, as you suppose, close on that river, but fifty miles from it; but we have a charming little river laid down on our plan, which we must coax and pet in the rainy season, that it may provide us with water in the drought."

      "You have a most extensive tract," said Arthur, looking on the plan.

      "Oh, yes," said Charles, "we propose, you know, to build a castle for ourselves, and a town for our vassals."

      "There lies my castle," said Edward, pointing to some large packages which contained the frame of his future abode. "As for the town, I am not without hopes to see it rise some time, and do honor to its name."

      "Deverell, I conclude?" observed Arthur.

      "So my mother wishes the station to be called," replied he; "but my own 'modest mansion,' I should wish to name Daisy Grange."

      "I never understood that the daisy was indigenous in Australia," said Mr. Mayburn.

      "Certainly it is not, sir," answered Edward; "but we have fortunately brought out a number of roots of this dear home flower, and will try to domesticate them in our new country; though I fear they will be apt to forget their native simplicity, and learn to flaunt in colors."

      "I know why you wish to call your house Daisy Grange, Edward," said Emma, nodding sagaciously at Margaret, and the general laughter showed the little girl had surmised correctly.

      "A very pretty and delicate compliment," said Mr. Mayburn: "our own glorious Chaucer speaks of the daisy as —

      'La belle marguerite,

      O commendable flower, and most in minde;'

      and the noble Margaret of Valois, a Christian and a scholar, had the daisy, or marguerite, worn in honor of her name, and is herself remembered as the 'Marguerite of Marguerites'."

      And

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