The good ship FLORABELLA, eighty-four days out from Liverpool, made the Australian coast early one spring morning; and therewith the faint, new, spicy smell of land wafted across the water.

Coming up from below to catch a whiff of it, her passengers blinked dazzled eyes at the gaudy brilliancy of light and colouring. Here were no frail tints and misty trimmings; everything stood out hard, clear, emphatic. The water was a crude sapphire; the surf that frothed on the reefs white as milk. As for the sky, Mahony declared it made him think of a Reckitt’s bluebag; while a single strip of pearly cloud to the east looked fixed, immovable — solid as those clouds on which, in old paintings, cherubs perch or lean.

Outside the “Rip” the vessel hove to, to take up the pilot; and every neck was craned to watch his arrival; for with him would come letters and news — the first to reach the travellers since their departure from England. Hungrily was the unsealing of the mail-bag awaited.

Mary’s lap would hardly hold the envelopes that bore her name. They were carried to her by the grizzled old Captain himself, who dealt them out, one by one, cracking a joke to each. Mary laughed; but at the same time felt a touch of embarrassment. For her to receive so large a share of the good things — under the very noses, too, of those unfortunates who got none — seemed not in the best of taste. So, the tale told, she retired with her budget to the cabin; and Mahony, having seen her below, went back to read his own correspondence on deck.

But she had done no more than finish John’s note of welcome and break the seal of Tilly’s, when a foot came bounding through the saloon, off which the cabin opened, and there was Richard again — Richard with rumpled hair, eyes alight, red of face, looking for all the world like a rowdy schoolboy. Seizing her by the hands he pulled her to her feet, and would have twirled her round. But Mary, her letters strewing the floor, protested — stood firm.

“What IS the matter?”

“Mary! Wife! Here’s news for us! . . . here’s news. A letter from —— “ and he flourished a sheet of paper at her. “I give you three guesses, love. But nonsense! — you couldn’t . . . not if you guessed till Doomsday. No more pinching and scraping for us, Mary! No more underpaid drudgery for me! My fortune’s made. I am a rich man . . . at last!”

“Richard dear! What is it now?”

Mary spoke in the lightly damping tone which Mahony was wont to grumble she reserved for him alone. But to-day it passed unnoticed.

“Here you are, madam — read for yourself!” and he pushed a crumpled letter into her hand. “It’s those AUSTRALIA FELIXES we have to thank for it. What a glorious piece of luck, Mary, that I should have stuck to them and gone on paying their wretched calls, when every one else let them lapse in despair. John will be green with envy. And this is only the beginning, my dear. There’s no telling what they’ll do when they get the new plant in — old Simmonds says so himself, and he’s not given to superlatives as you know. — Yes, it’s good-bye to poverty!”— and forgetting in his excitement where he was, Mahony flung round to pace the floor. Baulked by the narrow wall of the cabin, he had just to turn to the right-about. “It means I can now pick and choose, Mary — put up my plate in Collins Street East — hold my head as high as the best.”

“Oh, dear, how glad I am! . . . for your sake.” The tears sprang to Mary’s eyes; she had openly to wipe them away. “But it’s so sudden. I can hardly believe it. Are you sure it’s REALLY true?” And now she stroked the page smooth, to read for herself.

“You for my sake . . . I for yours! What haven’t you had to put up with, my poor love, through being tied to a rolling old stone like me? But now, I promise you, everything will be different. There’s nothing you shall not have, my Mary — nothing will be too good for you. You shall ride in your own carriage — keep half a dozen servants. And when once you are free of worries and troubles you’ll grow fat and rosy again, and all these little lines on your forehead will disappear.”

“And perhaps you won’t dislike the colony so much . . . and the people . . . if you can feel independent of them,” said Mary hopefully. Could he have promised her from this day forth a tranquil and contented mind, it would have been the best gift of any.

When he had danced out — danced was the word that occurred to her to describe the new spring in his step, which seemed intolerant of the floor — had gone to consult the steward about the purchase of a special brand of champagne, which that worthy was understood to hold in store for an occasion such as this: when Mary sat down to collect her wits, she indulged in a private reflection which neither then nor later did she share with Richard. It ran: “Oh, how thankful I am we didn’t get the letter till we were safely away from that . . . from England. Or he might have taken it into his head to stop there.”

Mahony felt the need of being alone, and sought out a quiet spot to windward where he was likely to be undisturbed. But news of the turn of his fortunes had run like wildfire through the ship, started by the steward, to whom in the first flush he had garrulously communicated it. And now came one after another of his fellow-passengers to wring his hand and wish him joy. It was well meant; he could not but answer in kind. But then they, too, had changed. From mere nondescripts and undesirables they were metamorphosed into kindly, hearty folk, generous enough, it seemed, to feel almost as elated at a fellow-mortal’s good luck as if it were their own. His hedge of spines went down: he turned frank, affable, easy of approach; though any remaining standoffishness was like to have been forgiven him, who at a stroke had become one of the wealthiest men on board.

He could see these simple souls thought he took his windfall very coolly. Well! . . . in a way he did. Just for the moment he had been carried off his feet — as indeed who could fail to be, when by a single lucky chance, one spin of fate’s wheel, all that had become his which half a lifetime’s toil had failed to give him? Yet ingrained in him was so lively a relish, so poignant a need for money and the ease of mind money would bring, that the stilling of the want had something almost natural about it — resembled the payment of an overdue debt. Yes, affluence would fit him like a second skin. The beggardom of early days, the push and scramble for an income of later life — these had been the travesty.

Next came a sense of relief — relief unspeakable. Alone by now in his windy corner, he could afford to let his eyes grow moist; and the finger he passed round inside his collar trembled. From what a nightmare of black care, a horde of petty anxieties, did the miracle of this day not set him free! To take but a single instance: the prospect of having to explain away his undignified return to the colony had cost him many a night’s sleep. Now he was the master of circumstance, not its playball. And into the delights of this sensation he plunged as into a magic water; laved in it, swam, went under; and emerged a new man. The crust of indifference, the insidious tiredness, the ennui that comes of knowing the end of a thing before you have well begun it, and knowing it not worth while: all such marks of advancing age fell away. Youthfully he squared his shoulders; he was ready to live again, and with zest. And under the influence of this revival there stirred in him, for the first time, a more gracious feeling for the land towards which he was heading. What he had undergone there in his day, none but himself knew; but, if his sufferings had been great, great, too, was the atonement now made him. Indeed the bigness of the reward had in it something of the country’s own immensity — its far-flung horizons.

“And perhaps, after all . . . who knows, who knows! . . . I myself . . . the worm that was in me . . . that ceaseless hankering for — why, happiness, of course . . . the goal of man’s every venture . . . the belief in one’s RIGHT to it . . . the fixed idea that it must be waiting for one somewhere . . . remains but to go in search of it. So, it is not conceivable . . . thus made wiser . . . all fear for the future stilled, too — HOW fear lames and deadens! — independent, now . . . beholden to nobody”— such were some of the loose tags of thought that drifted through his brain.

Till one or other touched a secret spring, and straightway he was launched again on those dreams and schemes with which he believed his last unhappy experience had for ever put him out of conceit. Oh, the house he would build! . . . the grounds he would lay out . . . the books he would buy . . . and buy . . . till he had a substantial library of his own. All the rare and pretty things that should be Mary’s. The gifts they would make her dear old mother. The competency that should rescue his own people from their obscure indigence. The deserving strugglers to whom he would lend a hand. Even individuals he disliked or was fretted by — Zara, Ned, Ned’s encumbrances — sipped from his overflow. Indeed he actually caught himself thinking of people — poor devils, mostly — who had done him a bad turn, and of how he could now requite them.

Over these imaginings the hours flew by — hours not divided off each from the next, but fusing to form one single golden day: of a kind that does not come twice in a lifetime. Meanwhile the vessel was well advanced up the great Bay, and familiar landmarks began to rise into view. He had sometimes wondered, on the voyage out, what his feelings would be, when he saw these familiar places again and knew that the pincer of the “Heads” had snapped behind him. Now, he contemplated them with a vacant eye; did not take up the thread of a personal relationship. Or once only: at sight of a bare old clump of hills behind Geelong. Then he impulsively went below to fetch Mary — Mary was packing the cabin furniture, sewing up mattresses in the floor-carpeting, the mirror in the blankets — and she, good-naturedly rising from her knees, for to-day she had not the heart to refuse him anything, tied on her bonnet and accompanied him on deck. There, standing arm-in-arm, they thought and spoke of a certain unforgettable evening, now years deep in the past.

“What greenhorns we were then, love, to be sure! So mercifully ignorant of all the ups and downs in store for us.”— But his tone was light, even merry; for to-day the ups had it.

“Yet you seemed to me very old and wise, Richard. I suppose it came of you wearing that horrid beard.”

“And what a little sprite you were! — so shy and elusive. There was no catching you . . . or getting a word in edgeways — thanks to that poor old chattering Mother B and her two bumpkins.”

“Whom you couldn’t tell apart . . . how that did make me laugh!” said Mary To add with a sigh: “Poor Jinny! Little did we think she would have to go so much sooner than the rest.”

“My dear, a good half of that party is dust by now.”

But no melancholy tinged the reflection. In his present mood, Mahony accepted life, and the doom life implied, with cheerfullest composure.

* * * * *

Hardly a letter received by Mary that morning but had besought them to regard the writer’s house as their own: they had only to make their choice. “Yes, and give umbrage to all the rest. Nonsense, Mary! We’ll just slip off quietly to a hotel. We don’t need to consider the expense now, and shall be much freer and more comfortable than if we tied ourselves down to stay with people.”

But Mahony’s plan miscarried.

What a home-coming that was! No sooner had the ship cast anchor than rowing-boats began to push off from the pier; while one that had been lying on its oars made for them with all speed. Mary, standing hatted and shawled for landing, looked, looked again, rubbed her eyes and exclaimed: “Why, I do declare if it isn’t Tilly! Oh, RICHARD, what a difference the weeds make!” And sure enough a few minutes later Tilly’s head came bobbing up over the side, and the two women lay in each other’s arms half laughing, half crying, drawing back, first one, then the other, the better to fix her friend. Certainly Tilly had never shown to more advantage. In old days her hats had been flagrant, her silks over-sumptuous, her jewellery too loud. Now, the neat widow’s bonnet with its white frill and black hangings formed a becoming frame for her yellow-brown hair, tanned skin and strong white teeth; the chains, lockets and brooches of twenty-two-carat Ballarat gold had given way to decorous jet; the soft black stuff of the dress moulded and threw up every good point in the rich, full-bosomed figure. Silently Mary noted and rejoiced. But Tilly, one glance snatched, blurted out: “Well, I must say England ‘asn’t done much for you, my dear! In all my days, Mary, never did I see you look so peaked and pasty. Seasickness? Not it! It’s that HORRIBLE climate you’ve ‘ad to put up with. I declare your very letters — with their rain, rain, and fog, fog — used to gimme the blue devils. Well! you’ve come back ’ere to the finest climate in the world. We’ll ‘ave you up to the mark again in a brace o’ shakes.”

Further she did not get, for here now was John arriving — a somewhat greyer and leaner John than they had left, but advancing upon one, thought Mahony, with the same old air of: I am here; all is well. Having cordially embraced his sister, John wrung his brother-in — law’s hand: “It would be false to pretend surprise, my dear Mahony, at your decision to return to us.” On his heels came none other than Jerry and his wife: a fair, fragile slip of a girl this — Australia............