ewspaper through the house too
rashly. Alice and her mother each volunteered to go with him, so as to
"break it" with feminine skilfulness to Mary, whose reason might be
destroyed by too sudden a gorge of joy, like the stomach of a starved
man by clumsy feeding. But while they anxiously discussed what ought to
be done, Frances was doing. The enterprising young lady slipped away,
and with Belle's help caught and saddled her pony, and was off to
Redford as if wolves were at her heels. No war correspondent on active
service ever did a smarter trick to get ahead of other papers.

She burst into the family circle violently.

"Mary--Mary! Deb! Rose! father! Mr Carey is alive! He wasn't drowned!
He wasn't on the DOVEDALE--he was just going; but they wanted him back,
and they made him a captain, and he's here now. His ship came in last
night, and there it is in the paper, and his name; and Mr Mills at Five
Creeks saw him himself after the Dovedale was wrecked, and he knows him
well, and he's in Melbourne now, and I expect he'll be here
directly--perhaps he's coming up now, this very minute--"

She was checked by angry exclamations from all persons addressed,
except Mary. She, at the moment bending over a table, cutting out
needle-work, straightened herself, and stood stockstill and staring,
while first her bricky face went dark purple all over, and then seemed
drained in three seconds of every drop of blood. She heard the words:
'Mr Carey is alive,' and instantly believed them; at the same moment
her dream-palace vanished, and she saw the bare ground of her love
affair exactly as it was--as Guthrie himself would see it--and just how
she had deceived herself and others. Her healthy heart and nervous
system could not support her under the impact of such a shock. She
reeled as she stood, spun half round, and fell backwards into Deborah's
arms.

"You little FOOL!" Deb rated the dismayed child, "to blurt it out like
that. Never mind, father, it's all right. She has fainted, but she'll
soon come round. Go and get a smelling-bottle, somebody. Tell Keziah to
bring a little brandy--don't speak to anybody else. Where's today's
ARGUS?"

While Rose was flying for restoratives, and Frances speeding through
the house with her great news, Deb and her father exchanged significant
glances over Mary's prostrate form.

"It is more than a year," said Deb, "and he has not even written to
her."

"I'll write to him," said Mr Pennycuick, grin