e at Elba Hall, and I say I don't like to
have a Deserter squandering convict's money there--with his
forty-pound-a-year cook, and his champagne at seventy a dozen. It's the
luxury of Sodom and Gomorrah."

"That does not prevent its being very nice to dine there," said Mrs.
Cavely; "and it shall be our table for good if I have any management."

"You mean me, ma'am," bellowed Tinman.

"Not at all," she breathed, in dulcet contrast. "You are good-looking,
Martin, but you have not half such pretty eyes as the person I mean. I
never ventured to dream of managing you, Martin. I am thinking of the
people at Elba."

"But why this extraordinary treatment of me, Martha?"

"She's a child, having her head turned by those Fellinghams. But she's
honourable; she has sworn to me she would be honourable."

"You do think I may as well give him a fright?" Tinman inquired hungrily.

"A sort of hint; but very gentle, Martin. Do be gentle--casual like--as
if you did n't want to say it. Get him on his Gippsland. Then if he
brings you to words, you can always laugh back, and say you will go to
Kew and see the Fernery, and fancy all that, so high, on Helvellyn or the
Downs. Why"--Mrs. Cavely, at the end of her astute advices and
cautionings, as usual, gave loose to her natural character--"Why that man
came back to England at all, with his boastings of Gippsland, I can't for
the life of me find out. It 's a perfect mystery."

"It is," Tinman sounded his voice at a great depth, reflectively. Glad of
taking the part she was perpetually assuming of late, he put out his hand
and said: "But it may have been ordained for our good, Martha."

"True, dear," said she, with an earnest sentiment of thankfulness to the
Power which had led him round to her way of thinking and feeling.

CHAPTER XI

Annette had gone to the big metropolis, which burns in colonial
imaginations as the sun of cities, and was about to see something of
London, under the excellent auspices of her new friend, Mary Fellingham,
and a dense fog. She was alarmed by the darkness, a little in fear, too,
of Herbert; and these feelings caused her to chide herself for leaving
her father.

Hearing her speak of her father sadly, Herbert kindly proposed to go down
to Crikswich on the very day of her coming. She thanked him, and gave him
a taste of bitterness by smiling favourably on his offer; but as he
wished her to discern and take to heart the difference between one man
and