were the only passengers to leave the train; which straightway puffed off again; and since the man hired by Mahony to transport the baggage was late in arriving, there was nothing for it b

human settlement; not the faintest sound broke the silence. To Mary i

ed up; carpet-bags, baskets, bundles counted and arranged: all by the light of a lantern. Richard, agog with excitement, had to be kept from waking the twins, who had dropped as

ging up the rear. Leaving the station behind them, they walked on till they came to a broad road, flour-soft to the feet, Cuffy kicking and shuffling u

g flat and black and mysterious.

he house fronts it, you know. Has t

to fall into! . .

ling in the garden, each fresh flap of the venetians startled her afresh; and in spite of the long, tiring journey, and the arduous days that had preceded it, she could not compose herself to sleep. And whe

, Richard, what in

my dear. It's onl

l? So

. Myself I hardly notice it now. And it doesn't l

palling din had something pathetic

ickness of the brick walls; the shade and coolness ensured by an all-round verandah. And though daylight, and what it shewed up, only served to render Mary more and more dubious, she had not the heart on this first morning to damp him by saying what she really thought. Instead, her tour of inspection over, she buckled to her mammoth job of bringing comfort out of chaos: putting

ch end which always stood open, and three room-doors on each side. You could run out of any of the windows and tear round the verandah, to play Hide-and-Seek or Hi-spy-hi. And not even Eliza was there to say: "Don't!" or "You mustn't!" She was in the far-away kitchen, scrubbing or washing up. They had breakfast off a packing-case, whi

live in it? What were all the holes full of water? Why were they abandoned? Why did people dig for gold? How did they do it? Why was money? - a fusillade of questions, to which on this d

her they did or not. And sometimes he said as well: "Yes, these are my youngsters! Don't you think I've reason to be proud of them?" . . . and as often as this happened, Cuffy felt uncomfortable. For these weren't the sort of men you stopped and talked to: you just said good morning an

er. When Papa pushed them forward and said: "My young fry arrived at last, you see!" he smiled back and said: "And

founded by the roar of laughter that went up at his words; not only the landlord laughed, but

ng, and she sounded cross. "Surely, Richard

, you quite realise how necessary it

children mixed up in the affair." When Ma

ouldn't! - go down the street where those horrid men were again. And if he saw them, he'd stamp his feet at them and call t

ancing with Mamma. He had seized her by the waist and polked her up the passage, and now was whirling her round, she trying to get loose and crying: "Stop, Richard, stop! You'll make me sick." But

ere's no room here for such goings-on," said

ourned the absence of the inlaid secretaire, the card-table, the ottoman. These things were still in the outhouse, in their travelling-cases; and there they would have to remain. The Collard and Collard took up nearly the whol

ke 'em open their eyes. Mary! I prophesy you'll have the whole township come trooping over the Lagoon to call. We shall need to charge 'em a

e she stitched, even while she turned the handle of the sewing-machine, he would stand at her side and talk, and talk, in a voice that was either pitched just

I've got, you know . .

ill a single coach with mourners. Richard - to be followed to his grave by the doctor who had-attended him, the parson who was to bury him . . . and not a soul

cusation against him, of stiff-necked reserve. The truth was, they just came in for their share of his all-pervading good humour. The children, too. Had he always made so much of the children, they would have felt more at home with him, and he have had less cause for jealous grumbles. He even unearthed his old flute, screwed the parts together, and to Cuffy's enchantment played them his one-time show-

at trial. The dining-room seemed never their own. More serious was the risk the children thereby ran of catching some infectious illness. Then, she sometimes felt very uneasy about Richard. In spite of his exuberance, he looked anything but well. The bout of dysentery he had suffered from, on first arriving, had evidently been graver than he cared to admit. His colour was bad, his appetite poor; while as for sleep, if he managed four consecutive hours of a night he counted

have professed to see in Barambogie what Richard did - oh! NO one but Richard could have so deceived himself. Of all the dead-and-alive holes she had ever been in, this was the deadest. Only two, trains a day called there, with eight hours between. The railway station was mostly closed and deserted, the stationmaster to be found playing euchre at the "Sun." Quite a quarter of the shops in the main street were boarded up; the shafts round the township had all been worked out or abandoned. As for the tale of the big mine . . . well, sh

tood alone on this side of the Lagoon, and were quite five minutes' walk from the township. Richard hugged himself with his privacy, and it certainly was nicer to be away from shops and public-houses. But, for the practice, their seclusion was a real disadvantage. Rummel had lived in the main street; and his surgery had been as handy for people to drop into for, say, a cut finger or a black eye, as was now the chemist's shop. Then, the Lagoon itself . . . this v

ter himself was an educated man, with whom even Richard enjoyed a chat; but he had married beneath him . . . a dressmaker, if report spoke true. Mrs. Cameron, wife of the Clerk of the Court, had lived so long in Barambogie that she had gone queer from it. Nor was it feasible to ask the old couple over of an evening, for cards or music; for

ty demanded. But the work told on her. And not alone because it was harder. In Hawthorn, she had laboured to some end; Richard had had to be re-established, connections formed, their own nice house tended. All of which had given her mind an upward lift. Here, where no future beckoned, it seemed just a matter of toiling for toil's sake. The consequence was, she tired much more readily; her leg