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.