ought all those things with you here?" cried Kate, horrified.
"Oh, aunt, where can I put them all for safety?"

Mrs. Grieves looked nonplussed. "I suppose you have some iron safes----"
she began.

"But not big enough to store that quantity of silver!"

Kate spent a restless night. Visions of bushrangers stood between her
and sleep. What would she do with that silver?

"Bank it," suggested Phil Wentworth the next morning, as she explained
her difficulty to him in the little counting-house after breakfast.

Kate shook her head. "Aunt wouldn't do it. If she did she might as well
have banked it in England."

The manager pulled his moustache. "How much is there?"

"I haven't seen it, but from what Cicely says I should say there are
heaps and heaps."

"Foolish woman," was the manager's thought, but he wisely kept it to
himself.

When, however, the silver was laid before her very eyes, and piece after
piece was taken from the trunks, ranged alongside one another in Mrs.
Grieves's bedroom, Kate's heart failed her.

"Mr. Wentworth must see it and advise me," was all she could say. And
her aunt could not deter her.

Kate's white brow was puckered into a frown, and her pretty mouth
drooped slightly at the corners as she watched Mr. Wentworth making his
inspection of the silver. She knew his face so well, she could tell at
one glance that he was thinking her aunt an exceedingly foolish woman,
and Kate was not quite sure that she did not agree with him.

However, the silver was there, and they had to make the best of it, for
Mrs. Grieves utterly rejected the idea of having it conveyed to a bank
in Sydney.

"The only thing to do," said the manager gloomily, turning to Kate, "is
to place it under the trap-door in the counting-house."

Kate looked questioningly at him. He half smiled.

"I think that the only thing you are not aware of in the business is the
fact that the flooring of the counting-house can be converted at will
into a strong lock-up. Come, and I will show you."

The three women followed him. To Cicely's English eyes the entire
homestead was a strangely delightful place.

Rolling to one side the matting that covered the floor of the
counting-house, Mr. Wentworth paused, and introducing a lever between
the joining of two boards upheaved a square trap-door, revealing to the
eyes of the astonished English ladies, and the no less astonished
Australian "boss," a wide, gaping receptacle, suitable for the ve