n
delivered by hand.

So far good: Polly had risen to his fly! He broke the seal.

DEAR SIR,

I shall be happy to help you with your new flag if I am able. Will you
kindly send the old one and the stuff down by my brother, who is coming
to see me on Saturday. He is working at Rotten Gully, and his name is
Ned. I do not know if I sew well enough to please you, but I will do my
best.

I REMAIN,

YOURS TRULY,

MARY TURNHAM.

Mahony read, smiled and laid the letter down--only to pick it up again.
It pleased him, did this prim little note: there was just the right
shade of formal reserve about it. Then he began to study particulars:
grammar and spelling were correct; the penmanship was in the Italian
style, minute, yet flowing, the letters dowered with generous loops and
tails. But surely he had seen this writing before? By Jupiter, yes!
This was the hand of the letter Purdy had shown him on the road to
Melbourne. The little puss! So she not only wrote her own letters, but
those of her friends as well. In that case she was certainly not stupid
for she was much the youngest of the three.

To-day was Thursday. Summoning Long Jim from his seat behind the
counter, Mahony dispatched him to Rotten Gully, with an injunction not
to show himself till he had found a digger of the name of Turnham. And
having watched Jim set out, at a snail's pace and murmuring to himself,
Mahony went into the store, and measured and cut off material for the
new flag, from two different coloured rolls of stuff.

It was ten o'clock that night before Polly's brother presented himself.
Mahony met him at the door and drew him in: the stove crackled, the
room was swept and garnished--he flattered himself that the report on
his habitat would be a favourable one. Ned's appearance gave him a
pleasant shock: it was just as if Polly herself, translated into male
terms, stood before him. No need, now, to cudgel his brains for her
image! In looking at Ned, he looked again at Polly. The wide-awake off,
the same fine, soft, black hair came to light--here, worn rather long
and curly--the same glittering black eyes, ivory-white skin, short,
straight nose; and, as he gazed, an offshoot of Mahony's consciousness
wondered from what quarter this middle-class English family fetched its
dark, un-English strain.

In the beginning he exerted himself to set the lad at ease. He soon
saw, however, that he might spare his pains. Though clearly not much
more than