help it. Good-bye--don't make it
harder, you, who are the only one that----; good-bye,--no more--don't
say any more."

At this moment the parlour door opened suddenly; Nettie's trembling
mouth and frame, and the wild protest and contradiction which were
bursting from the lips of the doctor, were lost upon the spectator
absorbed in her own affairs, and full of excitement on her own account,
who looked out. "Perhaps Mr Edward will walk in," said Mrs Fred. "Now he
is here to witness what I mean, I should like to speak to you, please,
Nettie. I did not think I should ever appeal to you, Mr Edward, against
Nettie's wilfulness--but, really now, we, none of us, can put up with it
any longer. Please to walk in and hear what I've got to say."

The big Bushman stood before the little fire in the parlour, extinguishing
its tiny glow with his vast shadow. The lamp burned dimly upon the table.
A certain air of confusion was in the room. Perhaps it was because
Nettie had already swept her own particular belongings out of that
apartment, which once, to the doctor's eyes, had breathed of her
presence in every corner--but it did not look like Nettie's parlour
to-night. Mrs Fred, with the broad white bands of her cap streaming over
her black dress, had just assumed her place on the sofa, which was her
domestic throne. Nettie, much startled and taken by surprise, stood
by the table, waiting with a certain air of wondering impatience what
was to be said to her--with still the sleeves turned up from her tiny
wrists, and her fingers unconsciously busy expressing her restless
intolerance of this delay by a hundred involuntary tricks and movements.
The doctor stood close by her, looking only at Nettie, watching her with
eyes intent as if she might suddenly disappear from under his very gaze.
As for the Australian, he stood uneasy under Nettie's rapid investigating
glance, and the slower survey which Dr Rider made on entering. He plucked
at his big beard, and spread out his large person with a confusion and
embarrassment rather more than merely belonged to the stranger in a
family party; while Mrs Fred, upon her sofa, took up her handkerchief
and once more began to fan her pink cheeks. What was coming? After a
moment's pause, upon which Nettie could scarcely keep herself from
breaking, Susan spoke.

"Nettie has always had the upper hand so much that she thinks I am
always to do exactly as she pleases," burst forth Mrs Fred; "and I don't
dou