e mail. If she was good enough to accept of him, she was to
draw upon him for a specified sum for passage-money and outfit, and
come out in the mail steamer following her answer. It was not a
brilliant letter, but it was honest and straightforward. However, as
Elsie had sailed for Melbourne before it reached England, it was of the
less consequence what it was.

Pending her answer, Brandon felt very unsettled. He could not set
himself to work systematically, and all the neighbours said that his
visit to England had spoiled him for a colonist, as it did with most
people. He missed his pleasantest neighbour, Mr. Phillips, and he
missed the children. Though Dr. Grant in one direction, and Mr.
M'Intyre in another, thought they were ten times better than the
Phillipses, Brandon did not feel that they could make up to him for
their absence.

Dr. Grant was certainly mismanaging, to a considerable extent, Mr.
Phillips's business, and muddling it as he did his own affairs. He had
now been many years in the sheep-farming line, and in the best of
times, for he had bought very cheap--much cheaper than either Phillips
or Brandon, and he had quite as large a capital to start with; but he
had a bad way of managing the men on his stations; he gave the same
wages as other people, certainly, for he could not help that, but he
always gave them with a grudge, and seemed to think his employes were
picking his pocket. He had a harsh and dictatorial way of giving
orders--very different from Brandon's and Phillips's pleasant
manner--and he consequently had never been well served. His men had
been the first to leave at the time of the diggings, and the
consequences had been most disastrous. From sheer want of hands, he had
sacrificed one of his runs with the sheep on it to Powell, and now he
grudged to see how very handsomely Powell had been repaid for his money
and time in this transaction. The fortune that Powell had made ought to
have been his--Dr. Grant's own--instead of filling the pockets of a man
who had only sprung from the ranks.

The same style of mismanagement was carried into Mr. Phillips's
affairs; and yet when Brandon relieved Dr. Grant of the burden he had
so unwillingly taken up, the latter felt rather hurt, for he had had a
handsome salary for the charge of Wiriwilta and the other stations, and
he would certainly miss the money; and, besides, he thought it showed a
want of confidence in himself on Phillips's part.

At Wiriw