one to Sydney on those mysterious visits which so mightily puzzled
the good people of Wandenong. The boldest and most off-hand of them,
however, could never discover what Barbara Golding did not choose to
tell. She was slight, almost frail in form, and very gentle of manner;
but she also possessed that rare species of courtesy which, never
declining to fastidiousness nor lapsing into familiarity, checked all
curious intrusion, was it ever so insinuating; and the milliner and
dressmaker was not less self-poised and compelling of respect than the
governess and confidant.

In some particulars the case of Louis Bachelor was similar. Besides
being the Post, Telegraph, and Customs Officer, and Justice of the
Peace at Rahway, he was available and valuable to the Government as a
meteorologist. The Administration recognised this after a few years
of voluntary and earnest labour on Louis Bachelor's part. It was not,
however, his predictions concerning floods or droughts that roused
this official appreciation, but the fulfilment of those predictions.
At length a yearly honorarium was sent to him, and then again, after
a dignified delay, there was forwarded to him a suggestion from the
Cabinet that he should come to Brisbane and take a more important
position. It was when this patronage was declined that the Premier
(dropping for a moment into that bushman's jargon which came naturally
to him) said, irritably, that Louis Bachelor was a "old fossil who
didn't know when he'd got his dover in the dough," which, being
interpreted into the slang of the old world, means, his knife into the
official loaf. But the fossil went on as before, known by name to
the merest handful of people in the colony, though they all profited,
directly or indirectly, by his scientific services. He was as unknown
to the dwellers at Wandenong as they were to him, or he again to the
citizens of the moon.

It was the custom for Janet and Agnes Osgood to say that Barbara Golding
had a history. On every occasion the sentiment was uttered with that
fresh conviction in tone which made it appear to be born again. It
seemed to have especially pregnant force one evening after Janet had
been consulting Barbara on the mysteries of the garment in which she was
to be married to Druce Stephens, part owner of Booldal Station. "Aggie,"
remarked the coming bride, "Barbara's face flushed up ever so pink when
I said to her that she seemed to know exactly what a trousseau ought