The Roving Spirit.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7719, 23 January 1905, Page 3

The Roving Spirit.

■ ■ The New Zealanders, even those of the feebler sex, seem to make their way when they leave the seclusion of their native country and join in the bustle and competition that are found in the older-world. A young' lady, after matriculating from' the Ashburton High School, took it in,to her head that she would like to travel, and, earning enough money ,by teaching- to carrv her to Melbourne, she filled a place as governess until her little stock of capiI fal would' allow her to continue her journey to London. 1„ the great metropolis she presented herself at •> training college, and bv her vei'v force oi character won her way into the goad graces of the management and was again able to replenish her finances. Writing to her friends in AshUurton at the end of November she says :—"I am now a resident English governess in a verv aristocratic Russian family. I get i;(J0 a year—l2s francs a month. There are three other governesses—two Flench and one German—and a nurse ami two children. As you can imagine, we all have practically nothing to do. The nurse speaks nothing but German, and when I first came here we could not exchange a word. During the Anglo-Russian incident over the fisher boats in the North Sea, she used to shake her list at meant! scowl whenever I passed. The dear old woman is wonderfully patriotic, and hates everything English For three inpuths in the summer I took the children and a young Russian lady travelling. We went to I.uchon, to Spain, tn L-ourdes, l'ucc, Biarritz* and many other places. We spent a month among the Pyrenees in the midst of scenery gorgeous enough even to rival New Zealand. In l'aris I spent a Rood deal of time enjoying: the wonders of Titian and Murillo and Raphael, ns well as all the queer old masters that Browning- has made us acquainted with—Fra Ijppo Lippo, Sen to (the faultless painter), Gallippi and the rest. Oh, yes, life is worth Irving in these- old cob-wHjhcd places, and I shall come hack to New Zealand with all the keener enjoyment of my own dear' home for having walked in these familiar paths and seep these familiar wights."