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SKETCHES IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

noticed that he did not fall asleep at once, but lay awake thinking solemnly about something or other which lay heavy on his mind. Next morning she asked him if he was unhappy about anything. "No," he said, "master's very good to me." She then inquired what he had been brooding over the night before. "0, about them pigs,—they will go just where I tell 'em not to go; they will get where I don't want 'em to get." Next Saturday it was still the same,—the boy's mind was quite haunted by the remembrance of the vagaries of his swinish flock. Still another week and another yet passed on, when suddenly, about Tuesday or Wednesday in the fifth week, the boy walked in, having run away from his place, as he owned. His mother scolded him for his behaviour, and asked him if anyone had been harsh or unkind. No, all had been kind to him. She tried to make out why he had left, but for a long time in vain; at length he threw his arms round her neck and sobbed out, "The pigs is so troublesome!"—they had fairly broken his heart at last.