confused
her heart and dimmed her lights when she most needed them to burn
brightly. While, at the very time when these doubts assailed her, her
sister's repetitions and the rising discontent and agitations of the
children, came in to over-cloud the whole business in a mist of sick
impatience and disgust. Return to Australia was never out of Susan's
mind, never absent from her pertinacious foolish lips. Little Freddy
harped upon it all day long, and so did his brother and sister. Nettie
said nothing, but retired with exasperated weariness upon her own
thoughts--sometimes thinking, tired of the conflict, why not give in to
them? why not complete the offering, and remove once for all into the
region of impossibility that contradictory longing for another life that
still stirred by times in her heart? She had never given expression to
this weary inclination to make an end of it, which sometimes assailed
her fatigued soul; but this was the condition in which Richard Chatham's
visit found her, when that Bushman, breathing of the wilds and the
winds, came down the quiet suburban road to St Roque's, and, filling the
whole little parlour with his beard and his presence, came stumbling
into the confined room, where Mrs Fred still lay on the sofa, and Nettie
pursued her endless work.

"Sorry to hear of the poor doctor's accident," said the Australian, to
whom Fred bore that title. "But he always was a bit of a rover; though
it's sad when it comes to that. And so you are thinking of a return to
the old colony? Can't do better, _I_ should say--there ain't room in
this blessed old country for anything but tax-gatherers and gossips. I
can't find enough air to breathe, for my part--and what there is, is
taxed--leastways the light is, which is all the same. Well, Mrs Rider!
say the word, ma'am, and I'm at your disposal. I'm not particular for a
month or two, so as I get home before next summer; and if you'll only
tell me your time, I'll make mine suit, and do the best I can for you
all. Miss Nettie's afraid of the voyage, is she? That's a new line for
her, I believe. Something taken her fancy in this horrid old box of a
place, eh? Ha! ha! but I'll be head-nurse and courier to the party, Miss
Nettie, if you trust yourselves to me."

"We don't mean to go back, thank you," said Nettie. "It is only a fancy
of Susan's. Nobody ever dreamt of going back. It is much too expensive
and troublesome to be done so easily. Now we are here, we mean