The untoward season had not been without its effect upon the thousand and one gardens that paint, in each vivid delicate hue, with flower tracery and plant glory, the rocky steeps and fairy nooks which engirdle Sydney. The undulating lawns were dimmer, the plant masses less profuse, the showery blooms less dazzling, the trailers less gorgeous, than in other years. Yet were not the shores of the fair, wondrous haven, beloved by Ocean for many a long-past Æon of lonely joy, before the bold scion of a sea-roving race invaded its giant portals, without some tokens of his favour. In the long, throbbing, burning days, when the sun beat blistering upon the heated roof, the white pavement, the dusty streets, he summoned from beyond the misty blue horizon the rushing wind-sisters fresh from the ice-galleries, the snow-peaks, the frozen colonnades of that lone land where sits enthroned in dazzling splendour, during days that die not or nights that never end, the sorceress of the Southern Pole. From their wings, frost-jewelled, dripped gentlest showers, refreshing the shore, though they passed not the great mountain range which so long guarded the hidden treasure-lands of the central waste. Hot and parched, compared with former seasons, the autumn seemed endless, yet were the gardens and shrubberies of Morahmee so comparatively verdant and fresh, from their proximity to the sea, that Ernest would have hailed it as an Eden of greenest glory, in comparison with the ‘sun-scorched desert brown and bare’ which Rainbar had long resembled.

Among the inhabitants of Sydney who made daily moan against the slow severity of the hopeless season (and who had in some cases good cause, in diminished incomes and receding trade, for such murmurings), Paul Frankston, to his great surprise, found his daughter to be enrolled.

This occurrence, involving as he thought a radical change of disposition, if not of character, much alarmed the worthy merchant. Calm and resolute, if occasionally variant of mood, Antonia Frankston had hitherto been one of the least querulous of mortals. Sufficiently cultured to comprehend that the stupendous laws of the universe were not controlled by the fancied woe or weal of feeble man, she had never sympathised with the unmeaning deprecation of climatic occurrences.

‘The wind and the weather are in God’s hands,’ she had once answered to some shallow complainer. ‘What are we that we should dare to blame or praise? Besides, I am a sailor’s daughter, and at sea they take the weather as it comes.’

In other matters, which could be set right by personal supervision or self-denial, she held it to be most unworthy weakness to make bitter outcry or vain lamentation. ‘If the evil can be repaired, why not at once commence the task? If hopeless, then bear it with firmness. Provide against its recurrence, if you like; but, in any case, what possible good can talking or, more correctly, whining do? That is the reason why men so often despise women, so often suffer from them. Look at them when anything goes wrong,—how hard they work, how little they talk! Perhaps they smoke the more. But even that has the virtue of silence, and therefore of wisdom. Talk is a very good thing in the right place, but when things go wrong, it is not in its right place.’

In former days of autumn, when the rains came not, when the flowers drooped, when bad news came from Paul Frankston’s pastoral constituents, and that worthy financier was troubled in mind, or smoked more than his proper allowance of cigars over the consideration of the state of trade, it was Antonia who invariably cheered and consoled him. She pointed out the triumphs of the past; she steadfastly counselled trust in the future; she soothed the night with her songs; she cheered the day with unfailing ministration to his comfort and habitudes.

Now, curiously, the old man thought his darling was different from what he had ever recollected. She suffered repinings to escape her as to the weary rainless season. She did not deny or controvert his occasional grumbling assertions, after a hot day in the city, that the whole country was going to the bad. She was, wonder of wonders, occasionally irritable with the servants, and impatient of their shortcomings. She kept her books unchanged and apparently unread for a time unprecedented in Mr. Shaddock’s experience.

Mr. Frankston could not by any means comprehend this deflection of his daughter’s equable mental constitution. After much consideration he came to the conclusion that she wanted change of air—that the depressing hot season was telling upon her health for the first time in his recollection; and he cast about for an eligible chance to send her to some friends in Tasmania, where the keener air, the somewhat more bracing island climate, might restore her to the animation which he feared she was losing day by day.

He thought also, amid his loving plans and plottings for his daughter’s welfare, that possibly she needed the stimulus of additional society. They had been living quietly at Morahmee of late, and the season of comparative gaiety, which in Sydney generally dates from the birthnight of the Empress of Anglo-Saxondom, had not as yet arrived.

‘We want a little rousing up,’ thought poor Paul; ‘we have had no little dinners lately, no one in the evenings. I have been thinking over this confounded season and these bothering bills till I have forgotten my own darling, but for whose sake the whole country might be swallowed up in Mauna Loa, for all old Paul cares. I shouldn’t say that either; but it seems hard that anything should ail the poor darling that care might have prevented. If her mother had lived—ah!’ and here Paul fell a-thinking, until the wheels of the dogcart grated against the pavement near the office door.

Thus it so chanced that, towards the end of the week, occurred one of the little dinners for which Morahmee was famous, with a ‘whip’ of certain musical celebrities of the neighbourhood, and as many ordinary guests as made a successful compromise between all ‘music,’ which sometimes hath not ‘charms’ for the masculine breast, and a regulation evening party, which would have been an anachronism.

Among the guests for whom Paul, in his anxiety for a healthful distraction for Antonia, had swept the clubs and the hotels, were Mr. Hardy Baldacre and Jermyn Croker. Squatters were scarce in Sydney beyond previous experience. They were all at home on their stations attending to their stock, except those who were in town attending to their bills. These last were chiefly indisposed to society. They dined at their clubs or hotels after half a day’s waiting in the manager’s ante-chamber, and felt more inclined for the repose of the smoking-room than for the excitement of the society.

Mr. Hardy Baldacre had managed to come to town, however, without such anxieties of a pecuniary nature as interfered with his amusements. Of these he partook of as full measure of every kind and description as he could procure cheaply. He had early developed a taste for pleasure, controlled only by considerations of caution and economy. Those who knew him well disliked him thoroughly, and with cause. Those who met him occasionally, as did Mr. Neuchamp and Paul Frankston, saw in him a well-dressed, good-looking man, with an affectation of good-humour and liberality by no means without attraction. Paul had heard assertions made to his disadvantage, but not having bestowed much thought upon the matter, had not gone the length of excluding him from his invitation list; on this occasion he had been rather glad to fill up his table.

Mr. Jermyn Croker, as usual, had constituted himself an exception to ordinary humanity by remaining at his club during the terrible season which sent the most ardent lovers of the metropolis to their distant duties. In explanation he stated that either the whole country would be ruined or it would not. He frankly admitted that he inclined to the first belief. If the former state of matters prevailed, what was the use of living in the desert till the last camel died and the last well was choked? No human effort could avert the final simoom, which was evidently on its way to engulf pastoral Australia. Now, here at the club (though the wines were beastly, as usual, and the committee ought to be sacked) there would be a little claret and ice available to the last. He should remain and perish, where, at least, a club waiter could see to your interment.

Such was Mr. Jermyn Croker’s faith, openly professed in club and counting-house. But those who knew him averred that he took good care to have one of the best overseers in the country at his head station, whose management he kept up to the mark by weekly letters of so consistently depreciatory a nature that nobody expected he would survive the season, whatever the issue to others. ‘Died of a bad season and Jermyn Croker’ had, indeed, been an epitaph written in advance and forwarded to him by a provincial humorist.

Hartley Selmore had also been found available. He, indeed, could not very well remain away from financial headquarters. So many of his unpaid orders and acceptances, with the ominous superscription ‘Refer to drawer,’ found their way to bank and office by every mail from the interior, that a residence in the metropolis was vitally necessary. In good sooth, his unflagging energy and great powers of resource, under the presence of constant emergency, were equal to the demand made upon them. With the aid of every device of discount and hypothecation known to the children of finance, he managed to keep afloat. His day’s work, neither light nor easy of grasp, once over, the philosophical Hartley enjoyed his dinner, his cigar, his whist or billiards, as genuinely as if he had not a debt in the world, and was always ready for a petit dÎner if he distrusted not the wine.

This dinner was, as usual, perfect in its way. The cooking at Morahmee was proverbial; the wines were too good for even Jermyn Croker to grumble at—had he done so he would have imperilled his reputation as connoisseur, of which he was careful; the conversation of the guests, at first guarded and unsympathetic, rose into liveliness with the conclusion of the first course, and, simultaneously with the circulation of Paul’s unrivalled well-iced vintage, became more adventurous and brilliant.

‘Where is our young friend Neuchamp?’ inquired Hartley Selmore. ‘I haven’t seen him for an age.’

‘Gone to the bad long ago, hasn’t he?’ replied Croker, with an air of pleasing certainty.

‘Heard he had bought a terribly overrated place on the Darling,’ said Selmore. ‘Very sharp practice of Parklands. Too bad of him—too bad, wasn’t it, now?’

‘Was it as good a bargain as Gammon Downs, Mr. Selmore?’ inquired Antonia, with a faint resemblance to former archness that lit up her melancholy features. ‘I am afraid there is not much to choose between you hardened pioneers when there is a newly-landed purchaser signalled.’

‘Really, Miss Frankston, really!’ replied Selmore, with a fine imitation of the chivalrous and disinterested; ‘you do some of us injustice. In all this dreadful season, I assure you, the creeks at Gammon Downs are running like English brooks, and the grass is green—absolutely green!’

‘Why, what colour should it be, Mr. Selmore—blue or magenta? But you know that I am an Australian, and therefore must have learned in the many conversations which have passed in my hearing about station matters that “green grass country” is generally spoken disrespectfully of, and “permanent water” is not everything. But we will not continue the rather worn subject.‘

‘I fancy Neuchamp can’t be doing so badly,’ cut in Hardy Baldacre, with his customary assurance, ‘for I hear he is going to be married.’

‘Married!’ echoed Antonia, as she felt the tide of life arrested in her veins for one moment, and, with the next, course wildly back to her beating heart. ‘Married, Mr. Baldacre, and why not? But papa often hears from him, don’t you, pappy, and he never mentioned it.’

‘Mentioned it! I should think not,’ growled Paul, with a leonine accent, as scenting danger. ‘I heard from him, let me see, a month or two back. I don’t believe a word of it. Who to?’

‘Well, I saw the young lady,’ persisted Baldacre, wholly unabashed, while he noted Antonia’s pale and unmoved features. ‘I went up in the coach with her, half way to Rainbar. She’s a cousin of his own; same name. Just out from England, and ever so rich.’

‘How the deuce should she go alone up to Rainbar?’ said Paul, full of doubt and dread. ‘Surely we should have heard of her, when she landed.’

‘She told me that she made up her mind suddenly to come out to him—did not let him know, and only stayed a week in Sydney, at Petty’s.’

‘Most romantic!’ said Antonia, driving the unseen dagger more deeply into her heart, after the fashion of her sex, but smiling and forcing a piteous and unreal gaiety; ‘and was she fair to look upon—a blonde or brunette? Mr. Baldacre, you were evidently in her confidence; you cannot escape a description.’

‘She was very good-looking indeed,’ said the ruthless Hardy, who had been struck with Augusta’s fresh complexion and insular manner. ‘She wore a gold eyeglass, which looked odd; but she was very clever, and all that kind of thing, as any one could see.’

‘Even Mr. Baldacre,’ said Antonia, with a sarcastic acknowledgment. ‘You must have had a delightful journey. You will tell me any other particulars that occur to you in the drawing-room. I feel quite interested.’

Here the faint signal passed which proclaims the withdrawal of the lady convives and the temporary separation of the sexes. What mysterious rites are celebrated above by the assembled maids and matrons, freed awhile from the disturbing influence of the male element? Does a wholly unaffected, perhaps unamused expression possess those lovely features, erst so full of every virtue showing forth in every look? Do they exchange confidences? Do they trust each other? Do they doff their uniforms, and appear unarmed, save with truth, innocence, simplicity? Quien sabe?

It may not have been apparent to the lady guests, to whose comfort and enlivenment Antonia was so assiduous, so delicately, yet so unfailingly attentive in her rÔle of hostess, that Miss Frankston’s heart was beating, her head aching, her temples throbbing, her pulse quickened, to a degree which rendered the severest mental effort necessary to avoid collapse. They heeded not the faint smile, the piteous quivering lip, the sad eyes, while words of mirth, of compliment, of entreaty, flowed rapidly forth, as she played her part in the game we call society. But when the small pageant was over and the last carriage rolled away she threw her arms round old Paul’s neck, and resting her head upon that breast which had cherished her, with all a woman’s love, and but little short of a woman’s tenderness, since her baby days of broken doll and lost toy, she lay in his clasp and sobbed as if her heart—poor overburdened, loving, despairing heart—was in verity, then and there, about to break.

‘My darling, my darling! my own precious pet, Antonia!’ said the old man, kissing her forehead, and wiping the tears from her eyes, as he had done many a time and oft in the days of her childish grief. ‘I know your sorrow and its cause; but do not be too hasty. We do not know if this loose report be true. It is most unlikely and improbable to me; though, if it be true, Paul Frankston is not the man to suffer this wrong to lie a day without—without claiming his right. But do not take it for proved truth till further tidings come.’

‘It is true—it is true,’ moaned Antonia. ‘I had a foreboding. I have been so wretched of late—so unlike your daughter, my dearest father. How could Hardy Baldacre have invented such a story? Why did he not give his—his betrothed—our address, if he had no—no—reason to do otherwise?’ sobbed poor Antonia.

‘I can’t say—I don’t know—hang her and her eyeglass—and the day I first saw him enter this house! But, no, I cannot hate the boy, whose pleasant face so often made a second youth for me. I hate taking things for granted; I must have proof before I—and then—Go to bed, my darling, go to bed; I will tell you what I think in the morning.’

It was well for Miss Frankston, perhaps, that the intense pain towards which her headache had gradually culminated rendered her for a while unable to frame any mental processes. As she threw herself upon the couch she was conscious of a crushing feeling of utter darkness and blank despair, which simulated a swoon.

She awoke to a state of mind to her previously unknown. In her breast conflicting emotions passionately contended. Chief among them was the bitter disappointment, the indignant sense of slight and betrayal, endured by every woman who, conscious that each inmost sacred feeling of her heart has been given to the hero of her choice, has been deliberately forsaken for another.

True, no word of love, no promise, no seeking of favour on one side, no half denial, half granting of precious gifts, had passed between them. In one sense, the world would have held him harmless, while friends and companions of her own sex, prone always to decry and distrust all feminine victims, would most certainly hint at mistaken feelings, delusive hopes, on her part—would be ready to welcome and to tempt the successful purloiner of a sister’s heart, the unpunished wrecker of a sister’s happiness.

But was there no tacit agreement, no unwritten bond, no fixed and changeless contract, slowly but imperceptibly traced in characters faint and pale, then clearer, fuller, deepening daily to indelible imprint on her heart—upon his, surely upon his? Were the outpourings of the hitherto sacred thoughts, feelings, emotions, from the innermost receptacles of an unworn, untempted nature, to be reckoned as the idle, meaningless badinage of society? Were the friendly counsels, the deep, unaffected interest, the frank brotherly intercourse, all to pass for nothing—to be translated into the careless courtesy affected by every formal visitor?

And yet, again, did not such things happen every day? Her own experience was not so limited but that she had known more than one pale maiden, weary of life, sick unto death for a season, unable as a fever patient to simulate ordinary cheerfulness because of the acted, if not spoken, falsehood of man. Had she pitied these too confiding victims, these hopeless, uncomplaining invalids, maimed in the battle of life, hiding the mortal wound from human gaze, bearing up with trembling steps the burden of premature age and sorrow?

Had not her pity savoured of contempt—her kindness of toleration? and now, lo! it was her own case. But could it be herself—Antonia Frankston, who from childhood had felt no want that wealth and opportunity could supply? who had never known a slight or felt an injury since childhood’s hour? to whom all sorrow and sufferings incidental to what books and fanciful persons called ‘love’ were as practically unknown as snow blindness to an inhabitant of the Sahara? Was she a wronged, insulted, deserted woman like those others? It was inconceivable! it was phantasmal! it was impossible! She would sleep, and with the dawn the ghastly fear would be fled. Perhaps this dull pain in her throbbing temples, this darksome mysterious heart-agony, would leave her. Who knows?

It is wonderful how much is taken for granted every day in this world, more especially in the interest of evil devices.

Mr. Hardy Baldacre would have been sorely puzzled by a cross-examination, but no one had presence of mind to put it to the proof. He was rapid in conceiving his plans, wonderfully accurate and thoughtful in carrying them through. His endowments were exceptional in their way. Bold, even to audacity, he never hesitated; cunning and unscrupulous, he pursued his schemes, whether for money-making or for personal aggrandisement of the lower sort, with a swift and sure directness worthy of more exalted aim. Undaunted by failure, he was careless of partial loss of reputation. He was known by the superficial crowd as a successful operator whenever there was a bargain to be had in stock or station property. He was shunned and disliked by those better informed and more scrupulous in their acknowledgment of friends, as a gambler, a niggard, and a crafty profligate.

Such was the man who had succeeded, by a lying device, in working present evil—it may be, incalculable future misery—to two persons who had never injured him. In this deliberate fabrication he had two ends in view. He secretly envied and disliked Ernest Neuchamp for qualities and attainments which he could never hope to rival. He was one of a class of Australians who cherish an ignorant prejudice against Englishmen, regarding them as conceited and prone to be contemptuous of the provincial magnate. With characteristic cunning he had kept this feeling to himself, always treating Mr. Neuchamp with apparent friendliness. But he was none the less determined to deal him an effectual blow when an opportunity should offer. The time had come, and he had struck a felon blow, which had pierced deeply the pure, passionate heart of Antonia Frankston.

He had for some time past honoured that young lady with his very questionable approbation. He admired her personally after his fashion; but he thoroughly appreciated and heartily desired to possess himself of what constituted in his eyes her crowning charm and attribute—the large fortune which Paul Frankston’s heiress must, in spite of all changes of season and fluctuation of securities, inevitably inherit.

Not unskilled in the ways of women, with whom his undeniable good looks and his prestige of wealth gave him a certain popularity, he thought he saw his way during her period of anger and mortification to a dash at the lady and the money, which needed but promptness and resolution to ensure a strong chance of success.

He saw by her change of countenance, by her forced gaiety, by her every look and tone, that the barbed arrow had sped far and been surely lodged.

‘Neuchamp, like a fool as he was, had evidently not written lately. The cousin (and a deuced fine girl, too, with pots of money of her own) had been staying up at Rainbar—a queer thing to do. Old Middleton, when bringing her to his place, had told every one that she was his friend Neuchamp’s cousin. It would be some time before Frankston or his daughter would find out the untruth of the report. In the meantime he would butter up the old man, humbug him with regret for his occasional “wildness,” promise all kinds of amendment and square behaviour for the future; then go straight to the girl, who, of course, could know nothing of his life and time, and say, “Here am I, Hardy Baldacre, with a half share in Baredown, Gogeldra, and No-good-damper (hang it; I must change that)—anyway, three of the best cattle properties of the south; here am I, not the worst-looking fellow going, at your service. Take me, and we’re off to Melbourne or Tasmania for a wedding-trip, and that stuck-up beggar Neuchamp may marry his cousin, and go up King Street the next week for all we care.” I shan’t say the last bit. But it will occur to her. Women always think of everything, though they don’t say it. That might fetch her. Anyhow, the odds are right. I’m on!’

This exceedingly practical soliloquy having been transacted at his hotel during the performance of his toilette, Mr. Baldacre partook of the matutinal soda-and-brandy generally necessary for the perfect restoration of his nerves, and breakfasted, with a settled resolution to call at Morahmee that afternoon.

This intention he carried out. He found Antonia apparently not unwilling to receive him upon a more intimate conversational footing than he ever recollected having been accorded to him. She was in that state of anxiety, unhappiness, and nervous irritability which makes the patient only too willing to fly to the relief afforded by a certainty even of evil. The climber upon Alpine heights, with shuddering death-cry, ever and anon casts himself into the awful chasm on the verge of which his limbs trembled and his overwrought brain reeled. The overtaxed sufferer under the pangs of mortal disease chooses death rather than the continuance of the pitiless torment. So the agonised heart, poised on the dread pinnacle of doubt, flees to the Lethean peace of despair.

Having not unskilfully brought the conversation round to the subject of Miss Neuchamp, Mr. Baldacre touched, with more or less humour, on certain unguarded remarks of that inexperienced but decided traveller. He enlarged, as if accidentally, upon her good looks and apparent cleverness, giving her the benefit of a tremendous reputation for learning of the abstrusest kind, and generally exaggerating all the circumstances which might render probable the admiration of an ultra-refined aristocrat.

Much of this delicate finesse, as Mr. Baldacre considered it to be, was transparent and despicable in the eyes of his listener. But, difficult as it may be to account for, otherwise than by ignoring all known rules and maxims for the comprehension of that mysterious mechanism, the feminine heart, there was, nevertheless, something not wholly disagreeable in the outspoken admiration of the bold-eyed, eager admirer who now pressed his suit.

With one of the sudden, tempestuously capricious changes of mind, common to the calmest as to the most impulsive individual of the irresponsible sex, a vague, morbid desire for finality at all hazards arose in her brain. She had listened and loved, and waited and dreamed, and dedicated her leisure, her mental power, her life, to the path of habit and culture which would render her every thought and speech and act more harmonious with his ideal. She had thought but of him. He had his plans, his projects, a man’s career, his return to England—a thousand things to distract him—all these might delay the declaration of his love. But she had never thought of this! She had never in wildest flight of conjecture conjured up a fiancÉe, a cousin loved from earliest child-betrothals, to whom he doubtless had written pages of minute description of all their well-intended kindness and provincial oddities at Morahmee.

And was she to sigh and droop, and pale and wither, beneath the unexplained, unshared burden of betrayed love? Had she not seen the colour fade from the fair cheek, leaving a cold ashen-gray tint where once was bright-hued joy, eager mirth, and laughter? Had she not seen the light die out of the pleading, wistful eyes, once so deeply glowing, so tender bright, the step fall heavy, the voice lose its ring, the woman quit the haunted dwelling where a dead heart lay buried and a still, gray-hued, hard-toned tenant sat therein, for evermore resignedly indifferent to all things beneath the sky? Was this her near inexorable fate?

No! a thousand times, no! Had she not in her veins the bold blood of Paul Frankston, the fearless sea-rover, who had more than once awed a desperate crew by the promptness of his weapon and the terror of his name? And was she to sink into social insignificance, and tacitly sue for the pity of him and others, because she had mistaken his feelings and he had with masculine cruelty omitted to consider hers?

No! again, no! The rebellious blood rushed to her brow, as she vowed to forget, to despise, to trample under foot, the memory, false as a broken idol, to which she had been so long, so blindly faithful. And as all men save one—for even in that hour of her wrath and misery she could not find it in her heart to include her father among the reprobate or despicable of his sex—were alike unworthy of a maiden’s trust, a maiden’s prayers, why not confide herself and her blighted heart to the custody of this one, who, at least, was frank and unhesitating in proffering his love and demanding her own?

Mr Hardy Baldacre had not thought it expedient to delay bringing matters to a climax, fearing that highly inconvenient truth, with respect to the fair Augusta, might arrive at any moment. With well-acted bluntness of sincerity he had adjured Miss Frankston to forgive his sudden, his unpremeditated avowal of affection.

‘He was a rough bushman,’ he confessed, ‘not in the habit of hiding his feelings. On such a subject as this he could not bear the agony of anxiety or delay. He must know his fate, even if the doom of banishment, of just anger at his imprudence, went forth against him. He expected nothing else. But if, before condemning him to go back to his far-off home (little she knew of its peculiar characteristics) a lonely, despairing man, she would only give consideration to his claims, rashly but respectfully urged, she might deign to accept a manly heart, the devotion of a life that henceforth, in good or had fortune, was hers, and hers only.’

Mr. Hardy Baldacre had an imposing, stalwart figure, by no means unfashionably attired, and Nature, while unsolicitous about his moral endowments, had gifted him with a handsome face. If not in the bloom of youth, he had not passed by a day the matured vigour of early manhood. As he bent his dark eyes upon Antonia and poured forth his not entirely original address, but which, heard in the tones of a pleading flesh-and-blood lover, sounded a deal better than it reads, Antonia felt a species of mesmeric attraction to the fatal and irrevocable ‘yes,’ which should open a new phase of life to her and obliterate the maddening, hopeless, endless past. For one moment, for one only, the fate of Antonia Frankston wavered on the dread eternal balance. She fluttered, birdlike, under the fascination of his serpentine gaze. Her words of regret and courteous dismissal refused to find utterance. At length she said, ‘I must have time to consider your flattering but quite unexpected offer. You will, I am sure, not press for an immediate answer. I will see you again. Meanwhile let me tell you that I value your good opinion, and shall always recall with pleasure your very kind intention of to-day.’

But, with that still hour of evening meditation in which Antonia was wont to indulge before retiring, came calmer, humbler, more tranquillising thoughts. As she sat at her chamber window, looking out over the wide waters of the bay, in which a crescent moon caused the endless bright expanse of tremulous silver, the frowning headlands, the garden slopes, to be all clearly, delicately visible,—as she heard the rhythmical, solemn cadence of the deep-toned eternal surge,—she recalled the moon-lighted eves, the soul-to-soul communing, of ‘that lost time.’

A strong reactionary feeling occupied her heart. It seemed as if, like the rushing of the tide, the stormy sway of the ocean she loved so well, her heart had surged in rising tempest and with passion’s flow, to ebb with yet fuller retrogression. Surely such were the words of this murmuring sea-song on the white midnight strand, which calmed, as with a magic anodyne, her restless, rebellious mood.

‘I have been wayward and wicked,’ she half sighed to herself, ‘false to my better self, to the teaching of a life, unmindful of my duty to my father, who loves me better than life, of my duty to One above, who has shielded and cherished me, all undeserving as I am, up to this hour. I will repent of my sin. I will abase myself, and by prayer and penitence seek strength where alone it can be found.’

It was long ere Antonia Frankston sought her couch; but she slept for the first time that night, since a serpent trail had passed over the Eden flowers of her trusting love, with an untroubled slumber and a resolved purpose.

Pale, but changed in voice and mien, was she when she joined her father at breakfast.

‘I see my little girl’s own face again,’ said Paul, as he embraced her, with tenderest solicitude in every line of his weather-beaten countenance. ‘I thought I had lost her. She must not be hasty; she was never so before. All may come right in the end.’

‘I have been a very naughty girl,’ said she, with a quiet sob, ‘ungrateful, too, and wicked. I have come to my senses again. It must have been the dreadful drought, I think, which is going to be the ruin of us all, body and mind. Fancy losing one’s daughter, as well as one’s money, because of a dry season!’

This small pleasantry did not excite Paul’s risible muscles much, but he was more pleased with it than with a volume of epigrams. It showed that experienced mariner, accustomed to slightest indications of wind and wave, that a change of weather had set in. His soul rejoiced as he took his daughter in his arms and exclaimed, ‘My darling, my darling, your mother is with the angels, but she watches over you still. Think of her when your old father is too far off or too dull to advise you. If she had lived——’ But here there were tears in the old man’s eyes, and the rugged features worked in such wise as to fashion a mask upon which no living man had ever gazed. There was a long confession. Once more every thought of Antonia Frankston’s heart lay unfolded before her parent.

That morning, before driving, as usual, to the counting-house, Mr Frankston sought the Royal Hotel, and, upon business of importance, obtained an interview with Mr. Hardy Baldacre ere that ‘talented but unscrupulous’ aspirant had completed his breakfast.

So decided was the assurance imparted by his visitor that, with all possible appreciation of the honour conferred, Miss Frankston felt herself compelled to decline his very flattering offer, that Mr. Baldacre knew instinctively that any further investment of the Morahmee fortress was vain, if not dangerous. He condoled with his early visitor about the state of the season, congratulating himself audibly that his runs were understocked, and that he had no bills to meet like some people; and finally accompanied Mr. Frankston to the door, with a friendly leave-taking, to be succeeded by a bitter oath as he lighted a cigar and paced the well-known balcony.

‘She has told her father. I saw the old boy was down to every move I had made. Knowing old shot, too, in spite of his politeness and humbug. I’d have hacked myself, too, at a short price, if I had had only another week’s innings. They may have heard something, or that fool Neuchamp is coming down and leaving everything to go to the devil. I had a good show, too. I thought I held trumps. Never mind, there are lots of women everywhere. One more or less don’t make much difference. Of course, it was the “tin” that fetched me, but I don’t see that I need care so much about that. I think that I shall make tracks to-morrow.‘

On the morning following that of Mr. Baldacre’s unlucky piece of information Paul Frankston lost no time in applying to headquarters for information. He, ‘with spirit proud and prompt to ire,’ would, a quarter of a century before, probably have smote first and inquired after. ‘But age had tamed the Douglas blood,’ and even if its current still coursed hotly on occasion, the experience of later manhood called loudly for plain proof and full evidence before he adopted the strange tale which had been told at his board.

Suspending all thought of what he might chance if any man were proved to have trifled with his darling’s heart, he simply wrote as follows:

Sydney, 10th April 18—.

Dear Ernest—We have heard a report down here—brought to our table, in fact, by Hardy Baldacre, a man you know a little—that you are engaged and about to be married shortly to a young lady, a cousin of your own, just arrived from England. Also that Miss Neuchamp left Sydney for Rainbar, after a week’s stay, and was seen by him on the way there in a coach.

For reasons which can be hereafter explained, I wish you to send me a specific admission or denial of this statement. I will write you again upon receipt of your reply to this letter. I am, always yours sincerely,

Paul Frankston.

E. Neuchamp, Esq.

On the following evening, after sending this, the most laconic epistle which had ever passed between them, Paul no sooner beheld his daughter’s face than he saw shining in her eyes the light of recovered trust, of renewed hope, of restored belief in happiness.

‘She must have received a letter,’ mused the sagacious parent. ‘Where is it, my darling?’ said he aloud.

‘Where is what?’ she replied, with a sweet air of embarrassment, pride, and mystery commingled.

‘Of course you have had a letter, or heard some news. I took the chance of the little bird’s whisper coming by post. I think I am right.’

‘Here it is, you wicked magician. Antonia will never have another secret from her dear old father. What agonies I suffered for my hard-heartedness! And oh, what have I escaped!’

Here was the letter, with a mere stamp thereon, which contained such a fortune in happiness as should have entitled the Government to a round sum on the principle of legacy duty:

Rainbar, 4th April 18—.

My dear Antonia—This letter will probably reach Sydney some days, or weeks even, before a young lady, for whom I entreat your friendship and kind offices. [H—m.] When I say that she is Augusta Neuchamp, my cousin, and my only relation in Australia, I feel certain that I need not further recommend her to you and the best of fathers and friends. [H—m.]

You will acknowledge her to be a refined and intelligent woman, that goes sans phrase, I should hope, and no truer heart, with more thoroughly conscientious acceptance of duty, ever dwelt in one of her sex. [H—m.]

But, writing to you with the confidence of old and tender friendship, I may as well state, delicately but decidedly, that Augusta and I have been utterly unsympathetic from our childhood, and must so remain to the end of the chapter. [Oh dear! surely I can’t have read aright.]

Even at Rainbar, to which rude retreat she posted with her usual impetuosity, without giving me the opportunity of forbidding her, we had our old difficulty about preserving the peace (conversationally), and once or twice I thought we should have come to blows, as in our childish days. [Thank Heaven! Oh, oh!]

You know I am not given to dealing hardly with your sex, whatever may be their demerits, and of course I am not going to abuse my cousin in a strange land; but I am again trusting to your perfect comprehension of my real meaning, when I say that, companionably, Augusta appears to me to be the only woman in the world I cannot get on with. [Blessed girl, dear, charming Augusta—I love you already!]

Of course, as soon as she left Rainbar (we were on very short commons of politeness by that time) I resolved to write and ask you to take her in at Morahmee, and show her Sydney and our monde, in the existence of which she disbelieves. You must be prepared for her abusing everything and everybody. But I know no one who can more gently and effectually refute her prejudices than yourself, my dear Antonia. You even subjugated Jermyn Croker, I remember. By the bye, have him out to meet Augusta. She admires his file-firing style of attack. Perhaps they may neutralise each other’s ‘arms of precision.’ [Do anything for her—ask the Duke to meet her, if she would like!]

I feel that I am writing a most indefensibly long letter. But I am very lonely, and rather melancholy, with ruin taking the place of rain—only one letter of difference—and advancing daily. Were it not so, I would, as the Irishman said, bring this letter myself. Oh, for an hour again in the Morahmee verandah, with your father smoking, the stars, the sea, the soft tones of the music, of a voice always musical in my ear! Ah me! it will not bear thinking of. It is midnight now, yet I can see a cloud of dust rising, as my men bring an outlying lot of cattle to the yard. [‘Poor fellow! poor, poor Ernest!’ sighed the voice referred to.]

I know you will be kind and forbearing with Augusta. She will not remain long in Australia. I think you will appreciate the unquestionably strong points in her character. Of these she has many—too many, in fact. Apparently it is time to close this scrawl—the paper says so. ‘Pray for me, Gabrielle,’ your song says, and always trust me as your sincere friend,

Ernest Neuchamp.

[Bless him, poor dear!‘]

‘So we are to have the honour of entertaining Ernest’s cousin, and not his future wife, it seems?’ said Mr. Frankston, also cheered up.

‘Never had the slightest thought of it, poor fellow,’ said Antonia, radiant with appreciation of the antipathetic Augusta. ‘How I could have been such a goose as to believe that wicked Hardy Baldacre, I can’t think. And, papa dear, I might have found myself pledged to marry him, doomed to endless misery, in my folly and madness. I shall never condemn other foolish girls again, whatever they may do.’

‘All’s well that ends well, darling,’ said the old man, with a grateful ring in his voice; ‘Paul Frankston and his own pet daughter are one in heart again. We don’t know what may happen when the rain comes.’

How joyous the world seemed after the explanation which Mr. Neuchamp’s letter indirectly afforded! Life was not a mistake after all. There was still interest in new books, pleasure in new music. A halo of dim wondrous glory was ever present during her nightly contemplation of sea and sky, in the lovely, all-cloudless autumn nights. The moan of the restless surge-voices had again the friendly tone she had heard in them from childhood. The sea was again splendid with possible heroes and argosies; it was again the realm of danger, discovery, enchantment—not a storm-haunted, boding terror, with buried treasures and drowned seamen, with treacherous, fateful wastes into which the barque, freighted with Antonia Frankston’s hopes, had been wafted forth to return no more.

It was during this enviably serene state of her mind that a note from the innocent cause of the first tragic scene which had invaded the idyl of Antonia Frankston’s life appeared on the breakfast-table at Morahmee.

Middleham, 20th April.

Dear Miss Frankston—My cousin Ernest, with whom I believe you are acquainted, made me promise to inform you of my proposed arrival in Sydney, on the conclusion of my visit to Mr. and Mrs. Middleton. That gentleman has kindly promised to accompany me to Sydney, which we shall reach (D.V.) by the five o’clock train on Friday next. I purpose taking up my abode at Petty’s Hotel.—Permit me to remain, dear Miss Frankston, yours very truly,

Augusta Neuchamp.

Of course nothing would content Antonia short of meeting at the station and carrying off to Morahmee, bag and baggage, this inestimable cousin, who had behaved so honourably, so perfectly.

Any other woman, with the mildest average of good looks, shut up in such a raft of a place as Rainbar metaphorically was, would have carried off Ernest, or any man of his age, easily and triumphantly. All the pleasant freedom of a cousin, all the provocation of a possible, unforbidden bride, the magic of old memories, the bond of perfect social equality as to rank and habitudes,—what stupendous advantages! And yet she was so happily and delightfully constituted by nature that, in spite of dangerous proximity and all other advantages, she was, it was plain from his letter, the very last woman in the world whom he could have thought of marrying. O most excellent Augusta!

Paul, of course, after a show of deep consideration, came to the conclusion that Antonia’s plan was the kindest, wisest, ‘onliest’ thing, under the circumstances. ‘Take her home straight from the train. Bother Petty’s—what’s the use of her moping there, and spending her money? I don’t think another girl for you to have a few talks with, and drives, and shopping, and Botanical Gardens, and Dorcas work together, could do you any harm, pet. So have her home quietly to-night. We must have a little dinner for her.’

Accordingly, when the punctual train arrived bearing Miss Neuchamp and her fortunes, she was astonished to hear Mr. Middleton exclaim, ‘Why, there is Miss Frankston come to meet us! How do you do, Antonia, my dear? Allow me to make known Miss Neuchamp; probably you are already acquainted with one another by description.’

Miss Neuchamp’s expectations can only be a matter of conjecture, but she was unaffectedly surprised at the apparition of this distinguished-looking girl, perfectly dressed and appointed, who stood on the platform, flanked by a liveried servant of London solidity of form and severe respectability of manner.

‘Very, very happy to welcome you to Sydney, Miss Neuchamp,’ said Antonia. ‘Papa and I were so disappointed that we did not know of your address before you left for the bush. He won’t hear of your going anywhere but to our house for the present. And, Mr. Middleton, I am pledged to bring you, as papa says we young ladies will be wrapped up in each other and leave him in solitude. I can command you, I know. Pray say you’ll come, Miss Neuchamp.’

‘If I may add my persuasion,’ said Mr. Middleton, ‘I could tell Miss Neuchamp that she could not act more discreetly for the present. I shall be delighted to wash all the dust out of my throat with some of your father’s claret, Antonia. I’m your humble admirer, you know, when I’m away from home.’

‘I shall be very happy to accept your hospitality, so kindly offered, for the present,’ said Augusta, overpowered by briskness of attack and defection of allies.

The grave servant immediately addressed himself to the luggage and, handing the strange lady’s nearest and dearest light weights into the carriage, remained behind to deposit one of Mr. Middleton’s portmanteaus at the club, and to convey the remaining impedimenta to Morahmee per cab. As Miss Neuchamp ensconced herself in the yielding, ample cushions of the Morahmee carriage beside Antonia, and was borne along at a rapid pace, the mere rattling of the wheels upon the macadamised road was grateful and refreshing to her soul, as a reminiscence of the unquestioned proper and utterly befitting, from which she had hitherto considered herself to be hopelessly sundered by the whole breadth of ocean.