Brandon was interrupted by the entrance of Miss Harriett, whose
curiosity as to where Emily had taken her friend had led her to the
nursery, a place she seldom visited.

"Why, Emily, what a thing to bring Mr. Brandon into the nursery! You
are a dreadful girl! I must tell Miss Melville of this."

"I have only come to bid goodbye to some friends," said Brandon.

"They should have come to you in the drawing-room, only those children
are so fond of their liberty that they prefer the nursery, where they
can torment Alice to their hearts' content, to anything like restraint
in the drawing-room. What a litter the place is in! I do wish we could
get a nurse."

"I must see Miss Melville, too, and bid her goodbye," said Brandon.

"She is in the housekeeper's room," said Harriett. "As you have been
introduced by Emily into the nursery, perhaps you will let me take you
there."

"Goodbye, then, Miss Alice," said Brandon.

"Goodbye," said she.

Brandon could not drop a word of his intention to Jane, for Harriett
Phillips was at his elbow when he made his adieu; but somehow Elsie
treasured up his parting looks, and embarrassed expressions, with as
much fidelity as if he had made an open declaration of love. Many a
woman's heart lives long on such slight food as this. And the next day,
Brandon was on board, and soon on the high seas, on his way back to his
sheep-stations and his troubles.

Chapter XIV.

Francis Hogarth's Canvass And Election

There can be little doubt that Jane Melville was a good deal influenced
in her decision as to the position she ought to hold with Francis by
the letter she had received from Tom Lowrie on the morning of the day
in which her cousin had betrayed to her more unmistakably than ever the
state of his own heart. It was something more for him to give up, and,
as I have said before, she rather overestimated both the importance of
the public duty and the amount of success in it which Francis was
likely to attain to. It might seem to impartial observers rather
Utopian to hope and expect some regeneration of the political world of
Great Britain from the return of an intelligent country gentleman of
independent and original principles, for a few obscure Scottish burghs,
to be one of an assembly of six hundred and fifty-eight legislators,
but it is from such Utopianism, felt, not in one instance, but in many,
that the atmosphere of politics, both in Great Britain and in
Australia, can be c