Page:The Irish in Australia.djvu/151

 dear Madam,—What can you be thinking of, to send such a handsome girl to my house? Heavens, the place would be beset! Besides, I do not like such showy women in my house. Send me a plain, homely-looking girl, and oblige, yours, &c.'"

It is narrated that on one occasion, just as she came to a solitary point of the road, near a valley, she heard a man shouting to her "Stop, stop!" A stout, rough bushman, clearing a few bushes at a leap, placed his hand on the horse's head, and said "Are you Mrs. Chisholm?" "Yes; what do you want?" "Want—want—why, what every man like me wants when he sees Mrs. Chisholm. Come now, do look up that hill, and see that nice cottage and 40 acres under crop. The land is paid for, and the three cows—oh, it would do you good to see the cows." Then, pulling out a roll of papers, he continued: "See what a character I have got from the magistrates in charge of the district; and look here, ma'am, at this roll of notes. Come now, Mrs. Chisholm, do be a mother to me and give me a wife; the smile of a woman has never welcomed me home after a hard day's work—you'll have pity on me—you don't mean to say No; you'll never be so cruel as to say No. It makes a man's heart light to look at your camp. Now, you don't mean to say you have not got a nice girl from Tipperary. Never mind the breakfast; I could keep the whole party for a week; and what peace of mind it would be to you to know what a kind husband I shall make for one of your girls." The appeal was irresistible, and the lonely bushman, who was so anxious to be mated with "a nice girl from Tipperary," was gratified with his heart's desire.

At the expiration of the first year of its existence, the Female Emigrants' Home, under the guidance of Mrs.