are on the river
again; but we are on a small creek towards the ranges. I should like to
have been on the river, but they say we are very lucky."

"I am so glad to see you," said Mary; "James Stockbridge said you would
be sure to come; otherwise, we should have sent over for you. What do
you think of my boy?"

She produced him from an inner room. He was certainly a beautiful
child, though very small, and with a certain painful likeness to his
father, which even I could see, and I could not help comparing him
unfavourably, in my own mind, with that noble six-year-old Sam Buckley,
who had come to my knee where I sat, and was looking in my face as if
to make a request.

"What is it, my prince?" I asked.

He blushed, and turned his handsome gray eyes to a silver-handled
riding-whip that I had in my hand "I'll take such care of it," he
whispered, and, having got it, was soon astride of a stick, full gallop
for Banbury Cross.

James and Troubridge came in. To the former I had much to tell that was
highly satisfactory about our shearing; and from the latter I had much
to hear about the state of both the new stations, and the adventures of
a journey he had had back towards Sydney to fetch up his sheep. But
these particulars will be but little interesting to an English reader,
and perhaps still less so to an Australian. I am writing a history of
the people themselves, not of their property. I will only say, once for
all, that the Major's run contained very little short of 60,000 acres
of splendidly grassed plain-land, which he took up originally with
merely a few cattle, and about 3,000 sheep; but which, in a few years,
carried 28,000 sheep comfortably. Mrs. Hawker and Troubridge had quite
as large a run; but a great deal of it was rather worthless forest,
badly grassed; which Tom, in his wisdom, like a great many other new
chums, had thought superior to the bleak plains on account of the
shelter. Yet, notwithstanding this disadvantage, they were never, after
a year or two, with less than 15,000 sheep, and a tolerable head of
cattle. In short, in a very few years, both the Major and Troubridge,
by mere power of accumulation, became very wealthy people.

Christmas morn rose bright; but ere the sun had time to wreak his fury
upon us every soul in the household was abroad, under the shade of the
lightwood trees, to hear the Major read the Litany.

A strange group we were. The Major stood with his back against a
tree-stem,