how far-off it is, and how held-in here you are. As little hint of the friendly settlement from here as of the grandeur of the seascape; and more burnt Bush than grass. Yes; this is where the house used to be. Do you see that bleached grey skeleton of a tree? That used to stand by the door—trunk, limbs, and even twigs all complete; but no trace, no chance of a leaf—like poor Eva’s life. Look, you can see the remains of the hearth still—that miserable hearth! I warn you that my tale is not a merry one—probably you will say that it little suits these strong and sunny hills. Yet it was lived among them. Yes; this is where Eva Symons used to live, and Joel, and pretty Paulie, brown as a nut, and ruddy as a little round apple. Poor Eva Symons! Hers was one of those stories of which a scandalised village at Home sees the beginning, and some unconscious colony the end. She was the daughter of a clergyman, well-to-do and well connected, and she made a runaway match with her father’s groom. Her family cast her off completely, and her husband and she came out to try their fortune in New Zealand. Perhaps no couple was ever less fitted for colonial life. Joel Symons hated work, Eva had never done a stroke of it. They had little money, no friends, and no “luck”; and so they drifted helplessly about from one untenable billet to another, until chance brought them, one fine day, to the little settlement down yonder. There they might have lived tolerably enough, had Joel been willing to do a decent day’s work, and Eva anything of a manager. But Joel was a skulker born, and as for her—poor thing! At home, the housekeeper had ordered
