this was not to be. For nearly two weeks there poured down such a tropical rain that the creek on the road to the church became a deep, wildly rushing river, spreading and overflowing the paddocks and country round about. My sister had made an error in stating her age in a certain document, and because of that and of the impossibility of reaching the church a mounted messenger was sent off ninety miles to Sydney, through the downpour of rain, to rectify my sister's mistake, as well as to obtain the Bishop's sanction for the marriage to take place in the house.

At first my mother had had some anxiety about the weddingbreakfast, but by good luck the under-steward of our ship chanced to come along, whom she forthwith engaged to help Henry, our cook. Never was there a better or a prettier wedding-breakfast. Trestles with boards laid across were set in the long verandah. The finest of tablecloths, brought out by my mother from England, was spread upon the impromptu table, and on it was set out most goodly fare of bush turkey, stuffed with thick rump-steak to make it juicy. The breast of this bird-the tenderest part is very dark, almost black; the legs and wings white, which are not eaten. There were also wanga-wanga pigeons, ducks, roast and boiled salt-beef-mutton was unattainable (it was not a sheep country)-tongue, ham, and freshwater crayfish, not to mention creams, jellies, and pastry, and a big and most excellent wedding-cake.

All was complete. The clergyman had arrived the previous night, and the messenger who had been despatched to Sydney ten days ago, and whose delay in returning had kept us in unpleasant excitement, was happily back again with the Bishop's dispensation, although, the weather having changed, it was hardly needed. The swollen waters had nearly returned to their usual bounds; an unclouded blue sky and golden sunshine glorified the wedding-day.

Our only guests were the doctor and his wife, and her sister, who came on horseback, and our Scotch friends, who travelled in a bullock-dray. Previous to the arrival of these the bride and bridegroom were married in our little parlour, in the presence of my father and mother, my elder half-sister, and myself. Mr. Meares wound up with an address in which he laid great stress upon avoiding the first quarrel!

Then followed the breakfast. Healths were drunk and

speeches were made? Was there ever a wedding-breakfast without them?

Soon after, the guests departed, and we of the household were left. In the cool of the evening, amidst the hurrahs of the men, who had had a holiday given them and a bucketful of sherry to drink the health of the bride and bridegroom, these two set out on horseback for their seven-mile ride to the little weatherboard inn at Kiama, escorted by our Sydney messenger to show them the way.

When my half-sister and her husband had settled down, a few miles out of Sydney, in a pretty house at Cook's River, her own elder sister went to stay with them. Subsequently I paid them a visit. It was to have been for two months, but lengthened out to five years, broken by occasional visits home.

Some two years after I had joined my sister, there arrived in Sydney a ship, the Rattlesnake. It had been sent out by the English Government under the command of Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., with officers especially selected for its duty, that of surveying the coasts of Australia, the Louisiade Archipelago, and New Guinea.

At a private dance given to the officers of the Rattlesnake I met the assistant-surgeon, an enthusiastic follower of natural science. After a few more meetings we became engaged, and eight years after, during five of which both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans separated us, we were married in England.

The engagement was truly a long and weary one, but its crowning gift was above all price, that of forty years of happy wedded life.

ODE ON THE TERCENTENARY OF

CHARTERHOUSE, 1611-1911.

'Lo, dost thou not see that these blessed fathers be now as cheerful going to their deaths as bridegrooms to their marriage!'-Words attributed to Sir Thomas More, who from his prison in the Tower saw the Carthusians passing to their execution.

For the promotion of piety and good literature.-Founder's Prayer.

DEAR daughter of Light on the warm green hills whose folds are fringed with the shining Wey,

Touched with the first white warning of dawn and brooding late on the long-drawn day,

With eyes turned south to your Mother of old, God's chair of rock in a region of cloud,

Where thunder rumbling round the cliffs and the mountainrill's voice lifted loud

With muttered litanies mingled once, and whirlwind to whirlwind shrieked yet higher,

But a still small voice in the brethren's hearts ever followed the

earthquake and the fire.

Their name, as white as the robe they wore, was broidered with glory of deeds more bold,

When lean hounds loosed from the kennels of kings waxed fat on the weak defenceless fold;

Meek they of the meek, whose martyr crown with purest honour of pearl should shine,

Because they have chosen that good part, once blessed in Mary as more divine;

And they passed to their doom as a bridegroom goes when hymns of rapture herald the bride;

-Whose age is past and their fancy flown, but their faith and their love and their goodness abide.

'The three-hundredth anniversary of Thomas Sutton's foundation will be commemorated at Charterhouse in London on the twelfth of December, which is kept as Founder's day. The event was celebrated at the new foundation in Godalming on the eighth of July last.

Chaire Dieu a local name, said by some to be the origin of l'abbaye Chartreuse.

How tender the meeting of old and young, when a bird in an almshouse builds her nest,

-Weak wings of fledglings taught to aspire, and frail old bodies that find their rest;

For so he planned it, Sutton the good, and showed the truth in a signal deed

That Youth should minister after his kind to Age according unto her need;

Whose walls arose in a gracious hour when the Gospel of peace went forth new-shod,

And England spake in her own sweet tongue of the law and the love and the mercy of God.

Dear daughter of Light, shall your light not shine, as the glad pocls gleam in the path of the sun!

You are born of the pangs of the changing earth; your course is the race that the ages run.

For monk and adventurer, soldier and sage, have passed on their way through your ancient doors,

To follow the Truth that trickles and flows as a young stream broadens down from the moors.

There Addison learned to love the fields, and muse on witty and weighty things;

There Thackeray primed the ruthless pen that knew no mercy for clowns or kings;

There Steele the scholar defied the law, and Leech with the finger of laughter drew;

There Wesley warmed with the fervour of Faith, and Havelock grave and manly grew;

There Crashaw's mystical fancy flamed, and passionate Lovelace toyed with song;

And Grote looked into the past and learned that a tyrant's right is a people's wrong.

Dear Mother of Life, shall your life not bud as a primrose born in the first faint spring,

-Spread wide and warm as the autumn moors aglow with the glory of gorse and ling,

-Grow great in compass and height and power as the hills that girdle your seat divine

From Selborne Hanger to Leith's long stair, blue Hindhead ridge to the Down's white line.

O born in the bright resurgent prime when a vernal gladness thrilled the earth,

Lost freedom leapt at thy quickening hour and knowledge awoke at the noise of thy birth,

When a spell was loosed from the fettered tongue of Greece whose body was not yet free,

And Man, the heir of the lettered past, bade yield the title of land and sea.

Then the sun of Shakespeare passed from cloud and mellowed to setting in milder rays,

And Milton beheld with eyes undimmed a world not fallen on

evil days.

Rich was thy treasure, a gift divine, O thou conceived in a golden shower;

And now the rumour of some new birth gives beacon-promise of light and power.

Three centuries pass: through the gloom of the night a steadfast hour-hand upward climbs,

Till sudden the silvery echoes awake, old rafters tremble and rock to the chimes;

The lone hour tolls, and muffled in grey the silent minutes creep out towards morn;

-O human hearts, awake and arise, the best of the ages of Earth is born.

O Mother of Youth, let youth bow down and bring rich gifts to the babe's bedside;

'Tis Nature has travailed, a last best birth; 'tis the world's new sowing and reaping tide.

Carthusian Mother, thou honoured of kings, be honoured of all who England love;

Bow down thine head to the earth below, lift up thine eyes to the heavens above;

As he first willed it, our founder the wise, let knowledge and piety join their hands:

Let feet that wander and hands that work be espoused to the spirit that understands.

Forget not Nature, the Mother of men, for such is the will of the Founder of all;

Learn thou of all things that on earth have life, since nothing

unmarked of His eyes may fall.