“I am a very old colonist.  I have been in Australia this thirty year and more, travelling about from place to place.  When you and Mrs. Frankland were talking about changes and ups and downs, I thought on a many as I have seen in the other colonies.  There’s them as I remember without a sixpence as is now rolling in gold.  I don’t know the Adelaide gentry so well, but I reckon they chop and change just like the others.  It is very unlucky for me to be here just at this present time, for I know of a many in Sydney that I might have applied to for a little loan, and they’d have been glad to give me assistance; but, unfortunately, I am on the Adelaide side, where nobody knows me.  There’s the Hunters, of Sydney, that I was nurse in the family.”

“And the Phillipses, of Wiriwilta, too, who I dare say, would be most happy to help you if you were straitened on the Melbourne side,” said Mr. Dempster, drily.  “Mr. Phillips is a more liberal man than Mr. Hunter.”

“It is not Mr. Hunter I’d look to, but his wife; she has the generous spirit,” said Mrs. Peck.

“The Hunters are at present in London—­at least, Mr. Hunter and the family are.  Mrs. Hunter died four years ago,” said Mr. Dempster.

“That’s a pity.  Oh, dear, dear!  I am sorry to hear that news.  Poor, dear lady; but in the midst of life we are in death,” said Mrs. Peck.

“No doubt we are,” said Mr. Dempster.  “No one knows that better than I do, for I am always living amongst the dead, and they occasionally help me to judge of people.  I get a good deal of insight into character through their means; and my impression is, that there is not a word of truth in all you have just been telling me.  You want to go to Melbourne, no doubt, but it is not to see a dying daughter.  You have other plans in view which cannot be carried out here.”

Mrs. Peck was somewhat taken aback by this blunt expression of opinion coming from a man apparently so suave and gentle.

“Indeed, sir,” said she, “I never heard nobody doubt my word afore; but this comes of leaving the place where you are known.  It is to see my daughter that I am most wishful to go to Melbourne.  No doubt I might have other reasons, for I don’t like Adelaide; but it’s this letter and this bad news that has made me so set on going.  But I was asking no favour of you.  If I did want a loan of a trifle, I’d have paid back every farthing of it with good interest.  But I think I had better draw on a friend of mine in Melbourne.  I suppose that if I did that, I could get the draft cashed at any of the banks?”

“You could get it cashed anywhere, provided you showed your authority to draw, and convinced the person to whom you applied that your friend was good for the money.  Under these conditions I should not mind advancing it for you myself.”

“But you’d be rather hard to convince, I fancy,” said Mrs. Peck.  “After the unhandsome way you have doubted my true story, I would not like to apply to you.  But any advance that any one would make to me would be as safe as the bank.  I have an annuity, and have had it for many years.”