head of New Zealand. It was, but now Wellington is the capital. The city of wooden match-boxes built in a draughty situation."

"How unpatriotic."

"Oh, no, I'm not, Mr. Clendon. But I reserve my patriotism for Dunedin?"

"You mean Edinburgh.

"I mean the new Edinburgh with the old name, not the old Edinburgh with the new name."

"Epigrammatic, decidedly. This is instructive, Miss Pethram. Do they teach epigram in the schools of Dunedin?"

"And why not? Do you think Oxford and Cambridge monopolise the learning of nations? We also in Dunedin," concluded Kaituna proudly, "have an university."

"To teach the young idea how to shoot--delightful."

"But I thought there was no game to shoot," said Tommy wickedly.

Mrs. Valpy reproved the trio for their frivolous conversation.

"You are all talking sad nonsense."

"On the contrary, gay nonsense," retorted Clendon lightly; "but I foresee in this badinage the elements of an article for The Satirist. Miss Pethram, I am going to use you as copy. Tell me all about yourself."

"To be published as an essay, and ticketed 'The New Pocahontas.'"

"Perhaps," replied the essayist evasively, "for you are a kind of nineteenth century Pocahontas. You belong to the children of Nature."

"Yes, I do," said Kaituna, quickly; "and I'm proud of it. My father went out to New Zealand a long time ago, and there married my mother, who was the daughter of a Maori mother. My grandmother was the child of a chief--a real Pocahontas."

"Not quite; Pocahontas was a chieftainess in her own right."

"And died at Wapping, didn't she?" said Mrs. Valpy, placidly. "Of course the dark races always give way to the superiority of the white."

Kaituna looked indignantly at this fat, flabby woman, who spoke so contemptuously of her Maori ancestors, who were certainly superior to Mrs. Valpy from a physical point of view, 

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