plentiful so much per annum,--but the absolute metal clinging about the
palm of one's hands like small gravel, or welded together in a lump too
heavy to be lifted, has a peculiar charm of its own. I have heard of a
man who, having his pocket full of diamonds, declared, as he let them
run through his fingers, that human bliss could not go beyond that
sensation. John Caldigate did not shoe his horse with gold; but he liked
to feel that he had enough gold by him to shoe a whole team. He could
not return home quite as yet. His affairs were too complicated to be
left quite at a moment's notice. If, as he hoped, he should find himself
able to leave the colony within four years of the day on which he had
begun work, and could then do so with an adequate fortune, he believed
that he should have done better than any other Englishman who had set
himself to the task of gold-finding. In none of his letters did he say
anything special about Hester Bolton; but his inquiries about the family
generally were so frequent as to make his father wonder why such
questions should be asked. The squire himself, who was living hardly a
dozen miles from Mr. Bolton's house, did not see the old banker above
once a quarter perhaps and the ladies of the family certainly not
oftener than once a year. Very little was said in answer to any of
John's inquiries. 'Mr. and Mrs. and Miss Bolton are, I believe, quite
well.' So much was declared in one of the old squire's letters; and even
that little served to make known that at any rate, so far, no tidings as
to marriage on the part of Hester had reached the ear of her father's
old friend. Perhaps this was all that John Caldigate wanted to learn.

At last there came word that John intended to come home with the next
month's mail. This letter arrived about midsummer, when the miner had
been absent three years and a half. He had not settled all his affairs
so completely but that it might be necessary that he should return; but
he thought that he would be able to remain at least twelve months in
England. And in England he intended to make his home. Gold, he said, was
certainly very attractive; but he did not like New South Wales as a
country in which to live. He had now contracted his ventures to the one
enterprise of the Polyeuka mine, from which he was receiving large
monthly dividends. If that went on prosperously, perhaps he need not
return to the colony at all. 'Poor Dick Shand!' he said. 'He is a
shepher