have a first-class chance to get on. I am sending Charlie out to
the West, to take over a block which those fools, Sutton and Co.,
got me to advance money on, and on which the man cannot pay his
interest. He will be away for some time.

Meanwhile, dear Mrs. Gordon, for the sake of old times, do what
you can for the girl. I expect she has been brought up with English
ideas. I can't get her to say much to me, which I daresay is my
own fault. After she has been with you for a bit, I will come up
and stay for a time at the station.

Yours very truly,
W. G. GRANT.

Reading this letter called back the whole panorama of the past--the
old days when she and her husband were struggling in the rough,
hard, pioneering life, and the blacks were thick round the station;
the birth of her children, and the ups and downs of her husband's
fortunes; then the burial of her husband out on the sandhills, and
her flight to this haven of rest at Kuryong. Though she had lost
interest in things for herself, she felt keenly for her children,
and was sick at heart when she thought what this girl, who was to
wield such power over them, might turn out to be. But she hoped
that Grant's daughter, whatever else she might be, would at any
rate be a genuine, straight-forward girl; and filled with this
hope, she sat down to answer him:

"Dear Mr. Grant," she wrote, "I have received your letter. Hugh has
gone down to meet your daughter, but the mails were delayed owing
to the river being up, and he may not get to the railway station