e Dalzells of the Grange, of
course?"

"I can't say that I do, sir."

"Well, they're gone now. Billy's father went the pace, and the
mortgagees sold him up; and if his mother hadn't given him a bit when
we started, Billy wouldn't have had a penny. She pawned all she could
lay her hands on for him, we found out afterwards--Billy was cut up
about that--and got ill-used by Heggarty for it when he found it out.
She was a fool, that woman. Everybody could see what Heggarty was,
except her. Old Dalzell was a gentleman, anyhow, with all his faults."

The white dress drew nearer, and its grey tweed companion. The host was
once more wasting his story on deaf ears. "So we started off; and when
we got here we went in together. He had enough to buy a mob of cattle
and a dray and team, and so had I. We loaded up with all the
necessaries, and hired three good men, and travelled till we found
country. Took us about five months. At last we came here, and put our
pegs in, and I started off to Melbourne for the license--ten pounds,
and leave to renew at the end of the year--and here I've stuck ever
since. Billy, he took up other land, and got married, and died, poor
chap! And that's his boy over there," pointing with his pipe--"and
he'll never be the man his father was, if he lives to a hundred."

The person referred to was he in the grey tweed, who sauntered with
such assurance at white-robed Deborah's side. He was a tall, graceful
and most distinguished-looking young fellow; but Guthrie Carey was
prepared to believe heartily the statement that Dalzell junior would
never be the man his father was.

"You shall see the identical hut," Mr Pennycuick kindly promised. "Down
by the creek, where those big willows are--I planted them myself. Not
good enough for a dog-kennel, my daughters say; but the best thing I
can wish for them is that they may be as happy in their good houses as
I was in that old shanty--aye, in spite of many a hard time I had
there, with blacks and what not. We cut the stuff, Billy and I, and set
the whole thing up; and all our furniture was our sleeping-bunks and a
few stools and a table. We washed in a tin bowl on a block outside the
door. Not so particular about tubbing and clean shirts in those days.
Our windows were holes of a handy size for gun barrels, and the
shutters we put up o' nights were squares of bark hung on to nails by
strips of green hide. Many's the time I've woke to see one of 'em
tilted up, and a