were strangers to her except him she had lost and her father. She
avoided Meadows not because he was Meadows, but because she wanted to
be alone.

Meadows rode home despondently, then he fell to abusing his folly, and
vowed he would think of her no more.

The next day, finding himself, at six o'clock in the evening, seated
by the fire in a reverie, he suddenly started fiercely up, saddled his
horse, and rode into Newborough, and, putting up his horse, strolled
about the streets and tried to amuse himself looking at the shops
before they closed.

Now it so happened that, stopping before a bookseller's shop, he saw
advertised a work upon "The Australian Colonies."

"Confound Australia!" said Meadows to himself, and turned on his heel,
but the next moment, with a sudden change of mind, he returned and
bought the book. He did more, he gave the tradesman an order for every
approved work on Australia that was to be had.

The bookseller, as it happened, was going up to London next day, so
that in the evening Meadows had some dozen volumes in his house, and a
tolerably correct map of certain Australian districts.

"Let me see," said Meadows, "what chance that chap has of making a
thousand pounds out there." This was no doubt the beginning of it, but
it did not end there. The intelligent Meadows had not read a hundred
pages before he found out what a wonderful country this Australia is,
how worthy a money-getter's attention or any thoughtful man's.