month as quartermaster,
and there are nine children. I think it was ridiculous of Edward giving
them any money at all, considering the fact that he was lightening their
cares by taking this boy, Jim, off their hands."

"Ah! Lizzie, we don't know. They may have been very fond of the kid--in
fact they _must_ have been, or they would not have kept him for six
years, when they could have sent him to the Government Orphanage at
Parramatta."

"I think that is what they should have done."

"No, you don't, Lizzie. You would not have let the youngster go into an
Orphanage had you known of the matter. You have father's heart, Lizzie,
under that pretty blouse of yours, although you pretend to be so cold,
and put on the 'keep-off-the-style'--even to me."

"I'm not cold-hearted, Thomas."

Gerrard rose from his scat, and in another moment, Mrs Westonley found
herself in his arms, and seated upon his knees.

"Now, look here Lizzie," and he kissed her, "I'm going to do my level
best to please you, for you are my sister. I daresay I have done many
things to displease you, but I love you, old woman, I do indeed. And
whatever I may have said in the past I 'take back' as we bushmen say,
and I want you to give me some of your affection. I know you have tons
of it concealed under that prim little manner of yours, but you are too
proud to show it. And see, Lizzie, old girl, I'm not really the reckless
scallawag you think me to be," and he stroked her hair, and looked
so earnestly and pleadingly into her eyes, that her woman's heart
triumphed, and she leant her head on his shoulder.

"I never thought you cared for me, Tom," she said "and I daresay that I
have been to blame in many respects. Edward is one of the best husbands
in the world, but he is careless and all but irreligious, and I
cannot--I really cannot change my nature and be anything more than
politely civil to the friends he sometimes brings here--they are rough,
noisy and bucolic. I am always urging him to leave a manager at Marumbah
and retire from squatting altogether. I do not like Australia, and wish
to live in England, but he will not hear of it, although we have ample
means to enable us to live in comfort, if not luxury."

Gerrard smiled as he gazed around the handsomely furnished room, and,
mentally compared it with his own rough dining room on his station in
the Far North.

"I should call this a pretty luxurious diggings, Lizzie," he said;
"there are not many suc