en another; was it likely that he would now suddenly prove
more stable? She did not think so. For she attributed his present mood
of pettish aversion wholly to the fact of his being run down in health.
It was quite true: he had not been himself of late. But, here again, he
was so fanciful that you never knew how literally to take his ailments:
half the time she believed he just imagined their existence; and the
long holiday she had urged on him would have been enough to sweep the
cobwebs from his brain. Oh, if only he could have held on in patience!
Four or five years hence, at most, he might have considered retiring
from general practice. She almost wept as she remembered how they had
once planned to live for that day. Now it was all to end in smoke.

Then her mind reverted to herself and to what the break would mean to
her; and her little world rocked to its foundations. For no clear call
went out to Mary from her native land. She docilely said "home" with
the rest, and kept her family ties intact; but she had never expected
to go back, except on a flying visit. She thought of England rather
vaguely as a country where it was always raining, and where--according
to John--an assemblage of old fogies, known as the House of Commons,
persistently intermeddled in the affairs of the colony. For more than
half her life--and the half that truly counted--Australia had been her
home.

Her home! In fancy she made a round of the house, viewing each cosy
room, lingering fondly over the contents of cupboards and presses,
recollecting how she had added this piece of furniture for convenience'
sake, that for ornament, till the whole was as perfect as she knew how
to make it. Now, everything she loved and valued--the piano, the
wax-candle chandelier, the gilt cornices, the dining-room
horsehair--would fall under the auctioneer's hammer, go to deck out the
houses of other people. Richard said she could buy better and handsomer
things in England; but Mary allowed herself no illusions on this score.
Where was the money to come from? She had learnt by personal experience
what slow work building up a practice was. It would be years and years
before they could hope for another such home. And sore and sorry as SHE
might feel at having to relinquish her pretty things, in Richard's case
it would mean a good deal more than that. To him the loss of them would
be a real misfortune, so used had he grown to luxury and comfort, so
strongly did the n