eel and know the unspeakable comfort and heart-rest of
congenial companionship.

CHAPTER TEN

Everard Grey

Uncle Julius had taken a run down to Sydney before returning to Caddagat,
and was to be home during the first week in September, bringing with him
Everard Grey. This young gentleman always spent Christmas at Caddagat,
but as he had just recovered from an illness he was coming up for a
change now instead. Having heard much of him, I was curious to see him.
He was grandmamma's adopted son, and was the orphan of very aristocratic
English parents who had left him to the guardianship of distant
relatives. They had proved criminally unscrupulous. By finding a flaw in
deeds, or something which none but lawyers understand, they had deprived
him of all his property and left him to sink or swim. Grannie had
discovered, reared, and educated him. Among professions he had chosen the
bar, and was now one of Sydney's most promising young barristers. His
foster-mother was no end proud of him, and loved him as her own son.

In due time a telegram arrived from uncle Julius, containing instructions
for the buggy to be sent to Gool-Gool to meet him and Everard Grey.

By this time I had quite recovered from influenza and my accident, and as
they would not arrive till near nightfall, for their edification I was to
be dressed in full-blown dinner costume, also I was to be favoured with a
look at my reflection in a mirror for the first time since my arrival.

During the afternoon I was dispatched by grannie on a message some miles
away, and meeting Mr Hawden some distance from the house, he took it upon
himself to accompany me. Everywhere I went he followed after, much to my
annoyance, because grannie gave me many and serious talkings-to about the
crime of encouraging young men.

Frank Hawden had changed his tune, and told me now that it mattered not
that I was not pretty, as pretty or not I was the greatest brick of a
girl he had met. His idea for this opinion was that I was able to talk
theatres with him, and was the only girl there, and because he had
arrived at that overflowing age when young men have to be partial to some
female whether she be ugly or pretty, fat or lean, old or young. That I
should be the object of these puerile emotions in a fellow like Frank
Hawden, filled me with loathing and disgust.

It was late in the afternoon when Hawden and I returned, and the buggy
was to be seen a long way down the ro