ime to say more, for she, recognising Jim, sprang up, and,
running to him, burst into hysterical weeping.

"Oh, my good old friend!" she cried; "oh, my dear old friend! Oh, to
meet you here in this lonely wilderness! Oh, James, my kind old
brother!"

I saw how his big heart yearned to comfort his old sweetheart in her
distress. Not a selfish thought found place with him. He could only see
his old love injured and abandoned, and nought more.

"Mary," he said, "what happiness to see you among all your old friends
come to live among us again! It is almost too good to believe in.
Believe me, you will get to like this country as well as old Devon
soon, though it looks so strange just now. And what a noble boy, too!
We will make him the best bushman in the country when he is old enough."

So he took the child of his rival to his bosom, and when the innocent
little face looked into his, he would see no likeness to George Hawker
there. He only saw the mother's countenance as he knew her as a child
years gone by.

"Is nobody going to notice me or my boy, I wonder?" said Mrs. Buckley.
"Come here immediately, Mr. Stockbridge, before we quarrel."

In a very short time all our party were restored to their equanimity,
and were laying down plans for pleasant meetings hereafter. And long
after the women had gone to bed in the drays, and the moon was riding
high in the heavens, James and myself, Troubridge and the Major, sat
before the fire; and we heard, for the first time, of all that had gone
on since we left England, and of all poor Mary's troubles. Then each
man rolled himself in his blanket, and slept soundly under the rustling
forest-boughs.

In the bright cool morning, ere the sun was up, and the belated opossum
had run back to his home in the hollow log, James and I were afoot,
looking after our horses. We walked silently side by side for a few
minutes, until he turned and said:--

"Jeff, old fellow, of course you will go on with them, and stay until
they are settled?"

"Jim, old fellow," I replied, "of course you will go on with them, and
stay till they are settled?"

He pondered a few moments, and then said, "Well, why not? I suppose she
can be to me still what she always was? Yes, I will go with them."

When we returned to the dray we found them all astir, preparing for a
start. Mrs. Buckley, with her gown tucked up, was preparing breakfast,
as if she had been used to the thing all her life. She had an imperial