him with a new responsibility. It was his lot for ever to be helping the
lad out of tight places. Sometimes it made him feel unnecessarily
bearish. For Purdy had the knack, common to sunny, improvident natures,
of taking everything that was done for him for granted. His want of
delicacy in this respect was distressing. Yet, in spite of it all, it
was hard to bear him a grudge for long together. A well-meaning young
beggar if ever there was one! That very day how faithfully he had stuck
at his side, assisting at dull discussions and duller purchasings,
without once obtruding his own concerns.--And here Mahony remembered
their talk on the ride to town. Purdy had expressed the wish to settle
down and take a wife. A poor friend that would be who did not back him
up in this intention.

As he sidled into one of the front benches of a half-empty hall--the
mesmerist, a corpse-like man in black, already surveyed its thinness
from the platform with an air of pained surprise--Mahony decided that
Purdy should have his chance. The heavy rains of the day, and the
consequent probable flooding of the Ponds and the Marsh, would serve as
an excuse for a change of route. He would go and have a look at Purdy's
sweetheart; would ride back to the diggings by way of Geelong.




Chapter VI

In a whitewashed parlour of "Beamish's Family Hotel" some few miles
north of Geelong, three young women, in voluminous skirts and with their
hair looped low over their ears, sat at work. Books lay open on the
table before two of them; the third was making a bookmark. Two were