ay up on Yorke's Peninsula. Of course," she added, with her
usual serene frankness, "I am very, very sorry that Mrs Tallis is not
coming back, for we are great friends, and always exchanged visits once
a week, and now I shall miss going there very much. And, oh, the garden
of which she was so proud! I suppose now----" she stopped, and reddened
slightly.

"Go on, please," said Gerrard with assumed gravity, though his eyes were
smiling.

"I was about to be rude enough to say that most men don't care much for
flowers."

"If I buy Kaburie, Miss Fraser, I will come to you, cap in hand, and
humbly beg you to instruct me what to do; and furthermore, I promise
that when you say 'do this' it shall be done."

"You are undertaking a big contract, Mr Gerrard," said Forde with a
laugh, as he rose to go to his horse; "you will have to send to Sydney
for a Scotch gardener."

As soon as the clergyman was out of hearing Gerrard, who had remembered
Lacey's remark about "a parson being in the running," said quietly,
"I certainly am a most forgetful man, Miss Fraser, and ask your
forgiveness. Here is a letter for you, which my friend Aulain asked me
to deliver to you."

The girl blushed deeply as she took the letter, for she instinctively
divined that Gerrard had purposely deferred giving her the letter whilst
Forde was with them. And from that moment she liked him.

"Thank you, Mr Gerrard," she said, as she placed the letter in the
pocket of her skirt. "Is Mr Aulain any better?"

"Yes, but he won't be 'fit' for another six weeks or so. He has had a
very bad attack of fever this time. Of course you know that he and I are
old friends?"

"Oh, yes, indeed! He always writes and speaks of you as 'old
Tom-and-Jerry.' And I am so really, really glad to meet you, Mr Gerrard.
Randolph says that you are the finest scrub rider in Australia, and he
is next."

"Ah, no, he is the first, as I told Lacey a couple of days ago. His own
troopers can hardly follow him when----"

"Don't, Mr Gerrard! I know what you were about to say," and she
shuddered; "but please do not ever speak to me of Mr Aulain in
connection with the Native Police. I loathe and detest them, and would
rather he were a working miner or a stockman, than a leader of such
fiends."

"Randolph Aulain is a different stamp of a man from the usual Inspector,
Miss Fraser. No one has ever accused him of cruelty or unnecessary
severity in discharging his duties."

"It is an ignomi