cking the remainder of his runs with the proceeds
of what he has sold, and settling down for himself. However, it will
take him some little time before he can complete his plans, and if I can
prevent his marrying Eleanor I will do so."

Tom Rainsfield continued conversing, or audibly soliloquizing in this
strain, without noticing the abstraction into which his companion had
fallen; and might have prolonged, even for an hour, his declamation
against Bob Smithers, had not the current of his thoughts been arrested,
and John Ferguson aroused from his reverie, by their being hailed from
the opposite bank by William, who had arrived with the sheep.

This was the signal for animation; and for hours all the party were
busily engaged effecting a passage of the stream with the ovine mass;
while the sun had just began to dip on the horizon, as the last of the
animals passed the fluvial barrier.

"Now," said Tom, as he gazed upon the assembled flock on the Wombi's
bank, "you had better let the men camp here with the sheep for the
night, and you and William come up and spend the evening, and stop the
night with us."

To this advice, however, there was one dissenting voice, and that voice
was John's. He had, within the previous hour, lost the interest he had
before experienced in a visit to Strawberry Hill; or rather, he now
wished to avoid the place altogether. And yet his heart yearned for one
of the residents; he desired to bask in the inspiring smile of his
spirit's charmer; he felt a longing to gaze once more into the face of
Eleanor Rainsfield, and read in her eyes, either the confirmation of
his fears, or the entire repudiation of any such engagement as that
mentioned by her cousin. Alas, poor John! he was hopelessly enthralled
in Cupid's bondage, and he felt it; though his calmer judgment whispered
to him an indulgence of such a sentiment was selfish and useless. If
such an attachment, or even engagement (he thought to himself), did
exist, and of that, from his friend's affirmation, he had no doubt, it
must have been entered into with her consent, and evident approval; for
by her cousin's account she was immovable, even to his entreaty; why,
therefore, should he, almost a stranger, attempt to interpose himself
between her and her evident inclination? Such were the thoughts that
contended in his mind, when he wished to avoid the Hill, and take his
departure at once with the sheep for his own station.

His brother, however