p, and
make a happy home for me in that dreary desert? Will you leave your
home, and come away with me into the grey hot plains of the west?"

"I have no home in future, Sam," she said, "but where you are, and I
will gladly go with you to the world's end."

And so that matter was settled.

And now Sam disclosed to her that a visitor was expected at the station
in about a fortnight or three weeks; and he was no less a person than
our old friend the dean, Frank Maberly. And then he went to ask, did
she think that she could manage by that time to--, eh? Such an
excellent opportunity, you know; seemed almost as if his visit had been
arranged, which, between you and I, it had.

She thought it wildly possible, if there was any real necessity for it.
And after this they went in; and Alice went into her bedroom.

"And what have you been doing out there with Alice all this time, eh?"
asked the Captain.

"I've been asking a question, sir."

"You must have put it in a pretty long form. What sort of an answer did
you get?"

"I got 'yes' for an answer, sir."

"Ah, well! Mrs. Buckley, can you lend Baroona to a new married couple
for a few weeks, do you think? There is plenty of room for you here."

And then into Mrs. Buckley's astonished ear all the new plans were
poured. She heard that Sam and Alice were to be married in a fortnight,
and that Sam had gone into partnership with Tom Troubridge.

"Stop there," she said; "not too much at once. What becomes of Mary
Hawker?"

"She is left at Toonarbin, with an overseer, for the present."

"And when," she asked, "shall you leave us, Sam?"

"Oh, in a couple of months, I suppose. I must give Tom time to get a
house up before I go and join him. What a convenient thing a partner
like that is, eh?"

"Oh, by-the-bye, Mrs. Buckley," said Captain Brentwood, "what do you
make of this letter?"

He produced a broad thick letter, directed in a bold running hand,

"Major Buckley,
"Baroonah, Combermere County,
"Gipps-land.

"If absent, to be left with the nearest magistrate, and a receipt taken
for it."

"How very strange," said Mrs. Buckley, turning it over. "Where did you
get it?"

"Sergeant Jackson asked me, as nearest magistrate, to take charge of
it; and so I did. It has been forwarded by orderly from Sydney."

"And the Governor's private seal, too," said Mrs. Buckley. "I don't
know when my curiosity has been so painfully excited. Put it on the
chimney-piece, Sam