CHAPTER V.


A great change has occurred in our household. Guy's father is dead,--
his latter years cheered by the accounts of his son's steadiness and
prosperity, and by the touching proofs thereof which Guy has exhibited;
for he insisted on repaying to his father the old college debts and the
advance of the L1,500, begging that the money might go towards his
sister's portion. Now, after the old gentleman's death, the sister
resolved to come out and live with her dear brother Guy. Another wing
is built to the hut. Ambitious plans for a new stone house, to be
commenced the following year, are entertained; and Guy has brought back
from Adelaide not only a sister, but, to my utter astonishment, a wife,
in the shape of a fair friend by whom the sister is accompanied.

The young lady did quite right to come to Australia if she wanted to be
married. She was very pretty, and all the beaux in Adelaide were round
her in a moment. Guy was in love the first day, in a rage with thirty
rivals the next, in despair the third, put the question the fourth, and
before the fifteenth was a married man, hastening back with a treasure,
of which he fancied all the world was conspiring to rob him. His sister
was quite as pretty as her friend, and she, too, had offers enough the
moment she landed,--only she was romantic and fastidious; and I fancy
Guy told her that "I was just made for her."

However, charming though she be,--with pretty blue eyes and her
brother's frank smile,--I am not enchanted. I fancy she lost all chance
of my heart by stepping across the yard in a pair of silk shoes. If I
were to live in the Bush, give me a wife as a companion who can ride
well, leap over a ditch, walk beside me when I go forth, gun in hand,