round sum with him towards a first-rate English
practice. Now he saw that this scheme had been a kind of
Jack-o'-lantern--a marsh-light after which he might have danced for
years to come. As matters stood, he must needs be content if, the
passage-moneys paid, he could scrape together enough to keep him afloat
till he found a modest corner to slip into.

His first impulse was to say nothing of this to his wife in the
meantime. Why unsettle her? But he had reckoned without the sudden
upward leap his spirits made, once his decision was taken: the winter
sky was blue as violets again above him; he turned out light-heartedly
of a morning. It was impossible to hide the change in his mood from
Polly--even if he had felt it fair to do so. Another thing: when he
came to study Polly by the light of his new plan, he saw that his
scruples about unsettling her were fanciful--wraiths of his own
imagining. As a matter of fact, the sooner he broke the news to her the
better. Little Polly was so thoroughly happy here that she would need
time to accustom herself to the prospect of life elsewhere.

He went about it very cautiously though; and with no hint of the sour
and sorry incidents that had driven him to the step. As was only
natural, Polly was rather easily upset at present: the very evening
before, he had had occasion to blame himself for his tactless behaviour.

In her first sick young fear Polly had impulsively written off to
Mother Beamish, to claim the fulfilment of that good woman's promise to
stand by her when her time came. One letter gave another; Mrs. Beamish
not only announced that she would hold herself ready to support her
"little duck" at a moment's notice, but filled sheets with sage advice
and old wives' maxims; and the correspondence, which had languished,
flared up anew. Now came an ill-scrawled, misspelt epistle from
Tilly--doleful, too, for Purdy had once more quitted her without
speaking the binding word--in which she told that Purdy's leg, though
healed, was permanently shortened; the doctor in Geelong said he would
never walk straight again.

Husband and wife sat and discussed the news, wondered how lameness
would affect Purdy's future and what he was doing now, Tilly not having
mentioned his whereabouts. "She has probably no more idea than we
have," said Mahony.

"I'm afraid not," said Polly with a sigh. "Well, I hope he won't come
back here, that's all"; and she considered the seam she was sewing,
wit