independent. Horseflesh is cheap enough here, but it
isn't always of the choicest quality; however, I can furnish you with
what you'll want in that way. All your cousins ride, of course, by a
sort of colonial instinct. An Australian and his horse almost grow
together like a centaur."

"And do you ride much, Cousin Jane?" asked Hubert.

"Oh, never mind the `cousin;' you must drop it at once," said Mr
Oliphant. "It's Jane, and you're Hubert. But I beg Jane's pardon for
smothering her answer."

"Oh yes, Hubert," replied his cousin; "I ride, as a matter of course; we
should never get over much ground, especially in the hot weather, if we
walked as much as people seem to do in England. But I have not yet
heard how you left my dear aunt and uncle. Seeing you seems half like
seeing them; I've heard so much of them."

"I suppose you hardly venture out kangaroo-hunting, Miss Oliphant?"
asked Frank.

"I have done so once or twice in the north," she replied; "but the
kangaroo is not fond of so many white faces near his haunts, so he has
retired from these parts altogether."

"And you find you can all stand total abstinence here?" asked Hubert of
his uncle.

"Stand it!" exclaimed Mr Oliphant; "I should think so. Why, my dear
nephew, it don't need standing; it's the drink I couldn't stand. You
should see the whole lot of us when we meet at one of our great family
gatherings. Well, it's not quite the thing perhaps for a father to
say--and yet I fancy it's not very far from the truth--that you'll not
see a stouter, a better grown--Jane, shall I say handsomer?--I certainly
may say a healthier, family anywhere; and not one of us is indebted to
any alcoholic stimulant for our good looks."

"You have always, then, been an abstainer since you came to the colony?"
asked Frank.

"No, I have not; more's the pity," was the reply; "but only one or two
of my children remember the day when I first became an abstainer. From
the oldest to the youngest they have been brought up without fermented
stimulants, and abhor the very sight of them."

"And might I ask," inquired Frank, "what led to the change in your case,
if the question is not an intrusive one?"

"Oh, by all means; I've nothing to conceal in the matter," said Mr
Oliphant; "the story is a very simple one. But come, you must make a
good tea; listening is often as hungry work as talking. Well, the
circumstances were just these: when I was left a widower, more than