finger; and so they parted. Miss M , w h o was not without moderate private means of her own, came on to Melbourne in the beginning of 1839, where she obtained an engagement in the family of one of the settlers located near town, and as this is not a chapter of a novel, it is no part of the writer's business to enter into a detailed description of the longing, pleasant, worrying time she had of it, yearning for the period fixed when a letter would be received from the fiance intimating when his arrival might be positively looked for. In consequence of the uncertainty of the English mails, this was to be during March; and though a couple of European posts had been received in Melbourne in the time, no message of love for Theresa was amongst them. Co-incidently on the 1st April she m a d e her way to the brick cottage in Chancery Lane, the h o m e of H e r Majesty's mails at the period, and when M r . David Kelsh, the grim guardian of the window, in a husky, curt, tone so familiar to him, blurted " Nothing for you Miss," the poor girl fancied that the day was emblematic of her errand, for it was " Fool's D a y " in reality for her. For thefirsttime a spasm of doubt—it was but a small one, there was not then room for more, since it would be treason to her love to encourage such an undreamed of idea—thrilled her trusting heart. " The little rift within the lute, That by-and-bye will m a k e the music mute, And, ever widening, slowly silence all."
Loving and hoping, crushing distrust when it whispered the possibility of deception, and ever haunted by waking and sleeping dreams, she passed through a harrying ordeal of several weeks, until one day, when calling at the Post Office, she was handed an English newspaper, and opening it, was thunderstruck by reading therein an announcement of the marriage of the recreant on the memory of whose last interview with her she had, so to speak, existed since they parted. T h e notification was ink-lined to give it significance, and there was little question as to the identity of the transmitter of the terrible news. T h e spell was immediately broken, the trustful girl was dis-illusioned. H e in w h o m she had so implicitly trusted, had played her false, and was a traitor to the vows attested by the ring. T h e shock wrung her heart in every fibre, and was near killing her; but she was not easily conquered, and with an almost superhuman effort she instantaneously resolved that her misplaced devotion should be suppressed, and every vestige of even a memory of her deceiver crushed out of her existence. She proceeded without delay to carry out her intention, and, walking along the river bank towards Richmond, near where the Botanical Garden Bridge now spans the water, she held final c o m m u n e with herself. T h e ring sparkled on her now disengaged finger, and every way she moved it some facet of the donor's treachery was reflected therefrom. At length her mind was finally m a d e u p ; there should be no half measures. H e r love should be quenched in oblivion, and no sooner was this resolve fixed than its execution was promptly commenced. Rushing from where she sat, she approached the river brink, looked into its then calm, pellucid waters, and drawing from her finger what she had for months reverenced as an amulet that would bring her peace and happiness, she gazed wistfully upon the small globe of carbon as it innocently flashed in the sun, and, with an untrembling hand, dropped it into the river, where, in all probability, it rests in peace in its liquid sepulchre to this day. Returning to town with a bursting heart, Miss M sought the solace of her couch. She had a dreary and harrowing night; but ere her eyes dozed in sleep some pitying muse looked into the chamber, and, inspired by the presence of the mysterious visitor, Miss M -, m u c h to her o w n astonishment, found a strange solace in versification, and, under an involuntary impulse, produced on paper a poetical effusion in every sense, a maiden essay. Thus disburdened, a feeling of quietude gradually possessed her; she enjoyed a dreamless tranquil sleep, and awoke with a conviction that her blighted attachment was as dead and buried, and as irrecoverable as the drowned ring. In the course of the day she forwarded the elegy so unaccountably written to the Editor of the Port Phillip Gazette, requesting its publication, and accordingly on the 22nd May, the following was presented to the reading public of Melbourne:—
