eacon Long, the rich squatters who lived at the
foot of Mount Buninyong. It brought the colour to her cheeks merely to
think of it.

She did not, however, breathe a word of this to Richard. She was a
shade wiser than the night before, when she had vexed him by blurting
out her thoughts. And the present was not the right time to speak. In
these days Richard was under the impression that she needed to be
humoured. He might agree with her against his better judgment, or,
worse still, pretend to agree. And Polly didn't want that. She wished
fairly to persuade him that, by setting up here on the diggings where
he was known and respected, he would get on quicker, and make more
money, than if he buried himself in some poky English village where no
one had ever heard of him.

Meanwhile the unconscious centre of her ambitions wore a perplexed
frown. Mahony was much exercised just now over the question of medical
attendance for Polly. The thought of coming into personal contact with
a member of the fraternity was distasteful to him; none of them had an
inkling who or what he was. And, though piqued by their
unsuspectingness, he at the same time feared lest it should not be
absolute, and he have the ill-luck to hit on a practitioner who had
heard of his stray spurts of doctoring and written him down a charlatan
and a quack. For this reason he would call in no one in the immediate
neighbourhood--even the western township seemed too near. Ultimately,
his choice fell on a man named Rogers who hailed from Mount Pleasant,
the rise on the opposite side of the valley and some two miles off. It
was true since he did not intend to disclose his own standing, the
distance would make the fellow's fees mount up. But Rogers was at least
properly qualified (half those claiming the title of physician were
impudent impostors, who didn't know a diploma from the Ten
Commandments), of the same ALMA MATER as himself--not a contemporary,
though, he took good care of that!--and, if report spoke true, a
skilful and careful obstetrician.

When, however, in response to a note carried by Long Jim Rogers drew
rein in front of the store, Mahony was not greatly impressed by him. He
proved to be a stout, reddish man, some ten years Mahony's senior, with
a hasty-pudding face and an undecided manner. There he sat, his ten
spread finger-tips meeting and gently tapping one another across his
paunch, and nodding: "Just so, just so!" to all he heard. He had the
t