io of aimless youth.

Chapter VII

Not twenty-four hours later, Sarah had an accident to her MACHOIRE and
returned post-haste to Melbourne.

"A most opportune breakage!" said Mahony, and laughed.

That day at the dinner-table he had given his sister-in-law a piece of
his mind. Sarah had always resented the name bestowed on her by her
parents, and was at present engaged in altering it, in giving it, so to
speak, a foreign tang: henceforth she was to be not Sarah, but Sara
(spoken Sahra). As often as Polly's tongue tripped over the unfamiliar
syllable, Sara gently but firmly put her right; and Polly corrected
herself, even begged pardon for her stupidity, till Mahony could bear
it no longer. Throwing politeness to the winds, he twitted Sara with
her finical affectations, her old-maidish ways, the morning sloth that
expected Polly, in her delicate state of health, to carry a
breakfast-tray to the bedside: cast up at her, in short, all that had
made him champ and fret in silence. Sara might, after a fitting period
of the huff, have overlooked the rest; but the "old-maidish" she could
not forgive. And directly dinner was over, the mishap to her mouthpiece
was made known.

Too much in awe of Mahony to stand up to him--for when he was angry, he
was very angry--Sara retaliated by abusing him to Polly as she packed
her trunk.

"Manners, indeed! To turn and insult a visitor at his own table! And
who and what is he, I should like to know, to speak to me so? Nothing
but a common storekeeper. My dear, you have my deepest sympathy. It's a
DREADFUL life for you. Of course you keep everything as nice as
possible, under the circumstances. But the surroundings, Polly! ... and
the store ... and the want of society. I couldn't put up with it, not
for a week!"

Polly, sitting on the side of the tester-bed and feeling very cast down
at Sara's unfriendly departure, shed a few tears at this. For part of
what her sister said was true: it had been wrong of Richard to be rude
to Sara while the latter was a guest in his house. But she defended him
warmly. "I couldn't be happier than I am; Richard's the best husband in
the world. As for his being common, Sara, you know he comes of a much
better family than we do."

"My dear, common is as common does; and a vulgar calling ends by
vulgarising those who have the misfortune to pursue it. But there's
another reason, Polly, why it is better for me to leave you. There are
certain circumst