Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/385

 visit at Townley, the residence of Colonel Townley, Lady O'Hagan's father. Though they have always been Catholics the estate has been in the family since the time of King Alfred, and the Castle, which is a massive one, is older, the Colonel is fond of saying, than the Protestant religion.

I make a few extracts from Marcus Clarke's correspondence at this time:

I now turned my face to the new country; a letter to Lord O'Hagan specifies my intentions.

, December 20th. ,—The latest train by which I can conveniently reach the steamer at Brindisi leaves this January 12, at nine o'clock in the morning and it is by it I propose to go. The sculptor has been here and made a successful bust, but there would be no advantage in my going to Rome, as he will not have it in marble—so as to take a last sitting for the marble—till long after I have left Europe. By the time they are lighting bonfires at Townley for the nouveau né I shall probably be a couple of months in my Australian home. I hope to arrive early in March. As a r friends never do what we wish them to do, and perhaps they are right with their better knowledge of what suits them. But ever since I have known Ms ben gn souten climate I have greatly wished you to get a villa where you would spend three or four of the worst winter months every winter