t, and from morning till night there is no
occupation other than that of looking for diamonds, and the works
attending it. Diamond-grubbers want food and brandy, and lawyers and
policemen. They want clothes also, and a few horses; and some kind of
education is necessary for their children. But diamond-searching is
the occupation of the place; and if a man be sharp and clever, and
able to guard what he gets, he will make a fortune there in two years
more readily perhaps than elsewhere. John Gordon had gone out to
Kimberley, and had returned the owner of many shares in many mines.

CHAPTER VII.

JOHN GORDON AND MR WHITTLESTAFF.

Mr Gordon had gone out to South Africa with the settled intention of
doing something that might enable him to marry Mary Lawrie, and he
had carried his purpose through with a manly resolution. He had not
found Kimberley much to his taste, and had not made many dear friends
among the settled inhabitants he had found there. But he had worked
on, buying and selling shares in mines, owning a quarter of an eighth
there, and half a tenth here, and then advancing till he was the
possessor of many complete shares in many various adventures which
were quite intelligible to him, though to the ordinary stay-at-home
Englishman they seem to be so full of peril as not to be worth
possessing. As in other mines, the profit is shared monthly, and the
system has the advantage of thus possessing twelve quarter-days in
the year. The result is, that time is more spread out, and the man
expects to accomplish much more in twelve months than he can at home.
In two years a man may have made a fortune and lost it, and be on his
way to make it again. John Gordon had suffered no reverses, and with
twenty-four quarter-days, at each of which he had received ten or
twenty per cent, he had had time to become rich. He had by no means
abandoned all his shares in the diamond-mines; but having wealth
at command, he had determined to carry out the first purpose for
which he had come to South Africa. Therefore he returned to Norwich,
and having there learned Mary's address, now found himself in her
presence at Croker's Hall.

Mr Whittlestaff, when he heard John Gordon's name, was as much
astonished as had been Mary herself. Here was Mary's lover,--the very
man whom Mary had named to him. It had all occurred on this very
morning, so that even the look of her eyes and the tone of her voice,
as those few words of hers had be