king, but the man
who had returned in his place was bloated and pimpled, and his once
frank eyes now wandered furtively about.

"John's grown a fine fellow, hasn't he, Dick?" asked the mother,
proudly.

"He ain't bad-looking, if that's what you mean, but he don't look up to
snuff. No offence, Jack. I'll teach you a few wrinkles. Have a pipe,
boy."

"Thanks," said John, replenishing his own.

"Take a glass," and Dick made a bumper of hot spirit and pushed it
towards his brother.

"I don't take spirit, Dick. A glass of ale now and then is enough for
me."

"Stuff and nonsense, Jack. Take it like a man. There's nothing like a
glass of brandy and water for putting life into a fellow."

John took the glass, with a twinge of conscience as he thought of Ruth.
But in the excitement of his brother's stirring accounts of bush life
everything else was forgotten, and he not only drained the spirit before
him, but finished a second glass with which Dick slyly supplied him.

"I tell you, Jack," said his brother, at the close of the evening, "life
in England is a slow-going, humbugging sort of thing; hard work and
little pay; you've got to bow and scrape to those who've got the brass,
and they lord it over you as they don't dare to do anywhere else. Now,
where I've come from, Jack's as good as his master, and in as fair a way
of making his fortune too. Take my advice, boy, and come back with me.
In a year or two you'll have made a home for that bonny lass I've been
hearing of, and you can send for her. What do you say, eh?"

For a minute John was too surprised to speak. "Really, Dick, you've
taken me unawares. I'd like to get on faster than I have been doing, and
make a better home for my little woman than I've any prospect of doing
here; but for all that, what you propose is too serious a step to think
of taking without a deal of thought, and I don't know what Ruth would
say."

"If the girl's got any grit in her, she'll say, 'go, by all means, and
send for me as quick as you can.' You can work your passage out, and I
could get you into a store at Melbourne, and you're such a sticker,
you'd be sure to get on. Now I never expect to be a rich man; I can't
plod, and I must have change; but you're different, and would soon make
your fortune."

John bade his parents and brother good-night, and walked home revolving
the new idea. It was surrounded by a halo of romance that rendered it
increasingly attractive to him. Success an