at with one thing and another I daresay
you've an appetite. Let me see what there is. Mrs. Storefield sent us
over a quarter of veal from the farm yesterday, and we've plenty of
bacon of our own. Mother and I live half our time on it and the eggs.
I'm making quite a fortune by the butter lately. These diggings are
wonderful places to send up the price of everything we can grow.'

So she got out the frying-pan, and she and I and mother had some veal
chops, with a slice or two of bacon to give it a flavour. My word! they
were good after a forty-mile ride, and we'd had nothing but corned beef
in the Hollow lately. Fresh butter and milk too; it was a treat. We had
cows enough at the Hollow, but we didn't bother ourselves milking; bread
and beef and tea, with a glass of grog now and then, was the general run
of our grub.

We had a talk about the merry time at the Turon races, and Aileen
laughed in spite of herself at the thought of Starlight walking down the
ballroom to be introduced to her, and being taken up to all the swell
people of the place. 'He looked grander than any of them, to my fancy,'
said she; 'and oh! what a cruel shame it seems that he should ever have
done what keeps him from going among his equals as he was born to do.
Then I should never have seen him, I suppose, and a thousand times
better too. I'd give up every hope of seeing him again in this world,
God knows how cheerfully, if it would serve him or help his escape.'

'I'm down here now to see you about the same escape,' I said; and then
I told her about Jim's letter, and what he said about the mate of the
ship. She listened for a good while patiently, with her hand in mine,
like we used to sit in old days, when we were young and happy and
alive--alive, not dead men and women walking about and making believe
to live. So I told her how we made it up to meet somewhere near the
Queensland border. Jim to come up the Murray from Melbourne, and so on
to the Darling, and we to make across for the Lower Bogan. If we could
carry this out all right--and it looked pretty likely--the rest of the
game would be easy; and once on blue water--O my God, what new creatures
we should all be!

Aileen threw her arms round my neck and sobbed and cried like a child;
she couldn't speak for a bit, and when she looked up her eyes seemed to
have a different kind of look in them--a far-away, dreamy sort of light
from what I'd ever noticed in them.

'It may come about,' she sa