Australian Tales - Setis

over its embankment and made a great chasm in the railway line. The
widow knew that a mail train would pass along the line at a certain hour,
and that if unwarned it would rush with all its living freight to
destruction. So she arose, and facing the pelting storm, waded through
the snow to some distance along the railway; then lighted a fire, and
watched beside it till the arrival of the train, which was thereby saved
from sudden ruin. That is the spirit which should actuate every heart, sir,
when a fellow-creature is in danger. It is that spirit, I trust, which
prompts me to caution parents whenever I can, to carefully watch over
their children, lest they should unhappily acquire habits which will
— apart from the moral aspect — as surely shatter their physical health,
as the worm at its root will destroy the vitality of a young tree.”
Chapter VI.
“I HAVE uttered a good deal of nonsense, Mr. Boomerang, while
speaking of my wife, and I daresay you think I am a silly old fellow; but
bear in mind there was fun as well as folly in my remarks, and I did not
mean all I said, of course not. I have called my Nanny an angel, and a
bird of Paradise, but bless her heart she is only a woman after all, I know
that very well. She is as wingless as an emu, and has not even got a
feather on her bonnet. My whimsical figures are not intended to be
subjected to matter of fact scrutiny, and I don't suppose they would go far
with a common jury in establishing my wife's superiority, or my common
sense either. Still, for all that, I can and will say in sober earnestness, that
she is a superior woman in every way, mentally and materially; that I can
prove by a thousand evidences. But even superior women have little
marks of human nature about them, and the man who expects to find a
wife without them had much better remain a bachelor all his life.
“As I have said before, sir, Nanny was free from all fussy whims and
fancies, which some young wives think it pretty to exhibit, still she
was — she was — well, sir, she was not an angel — that is the best way
to express it. She was not perfect, so I began to study her little
pecularities or idiosyncrasies, and in a short time I could keep her in tune
as mellow as my German flute. She was subject to nervous depressions,
poor thing, owing to spinal weakness. Those sufferers who understand
what that means, will readily sympathise with her; but persons with no
nerves usually laugh at such disorders, which they call by a variety of
ridiculous names, and treat the victims of them with contempt rather than
with pity. When at home, her father (who knew no more about nervous
disorders than a brewer's horse) used to try to rally her out of her
mopishness, as he called it, by blustering at her in his characteristic style,
or recommending half-a-dozen rough remedies in a breath, which usually
sent her to her room in tears. I took another plan, sir, for I had too high