Here it is, in substance:-- Some years ago, when the Australian gold fever was hot in the veins of thousands, and fleets of ships were conveying them to that far- off, uncultivated world, a poor old woman landed with the great multitude of rough and reckless men, who were fired to almost frenzy by dreams of ponderous nuggets and golden fortunes.

For these they left behind them all the enjoyments, endearments, all the softening sanctities and surroundings of home and social life in England.

For these they left mothers, wives, sisters and daughters.

There they were, thinly tented in the rain, and the dew, and the mist, a busy, boisterous, womanless camp of diggers and grubbers, roughing-and- tumbling it in the scramble for gold mites, with no quiet Sabbath breaks, nor Sabbath songs, nor Sabbath bells to measure off and sweeten a season of rest.

Well, the poor widow, who had her cabin within a few miles of "the diggings," brought with her but few comforts from the old homeland--a few simple articles of furniture, the bible and psalm-book of her youth, and an English lark to sing to her solitude the songs that had cheered her on the other side of the globe.