abilities should make his name--and incidentally her name--famous
all over the world. She herself, of course, was always the foremost
figure, the handsomest woman, the best-dressed, the most admired;
for Ellen Harriott, though only a girl, and a friendless governess
at Kuryong, was not inclined to put herself second to anyone. Having
learnt from her father's papers that he was of an old family, she
considered herself anybody's equal. Her brain held a crazy enough
jumble of ideas, no doubt; but given a strong imagination, no
experience, and omnivorous reading, a young girl's mind is exactly
the place where fantastic ideas will breed and multiply. She went
about with Mrs. Gordon to the small festivities of the district,
and was welcomed everywhere, and deferred to by the local settlers;
she had yet to know what a snub meant; so the world to her seemed a
very easy sort of place to get along in. The coming of the heiress
was as light over a trackless ocean. Here was someone who had seen,
known, and done all the things which she herself wished to see, know,
and do; someone who had travelled on the Continent, tobogganed in
Switzerland, ridden in Rotten Row, voyaged in private yachts, hunted
in the shires; here was the world at last come to her door--the
world of which she had read so much and knew so little.

On the second morning after Miss Grant's arrival, that young lady
turned up at breakfast in a tailor-made suit with short skirt and
heavy boots, and announced her intention of "walking round the
estate;" but as Kuryong--though only a small station, as stations
go--was, roughly, ten miles square, this project had to be abandoned.
Then she asked Hugh if he would have the servants mustered. He
told her that the two servants were in the kitchen, but it turned
out that she wanted to interview all the station hands, and it had
to be explained that the horse-driver was six miles out on the run