“Wise wretch with pleasures too refined to please, With too much spirit to be e’er at ease,
*         *         *         *         *
You purchase pain with all that joy can give.”
Pope.
 I
T is an hour after sundown at Murdaro station. A few lights twinkle here and there about the dusky quadrangle of low-roofed buildings, ere shadow and silence bring to a close another workday.
 
The giant curlew screeches impatiently to his dilatory mate at intervals from the bush hard by; the dingoes wail mournful signals on the distant sandstone ridges; and at the other side of the star-reflecting water-hole, beneath the dark group of Deadfinish gum-trees, the native station-hands and fat house-gins, their labours over for the day, can be heard crooning out their evening chants.
 
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In the drawing-room of “Government House” the blinds and curtains have been drawn across the windows, and the light of a couple of silver-plated oil lamps shows that the apartment boasts of an amount of fine art decoration and luxurious furniture quite unusual, even in the salon aux dames of a “large” squatter’s household.
 
Wealth has joined hands with taste under the direction of a graceful female mind, and beneath the shaggy, rush-thatched roof of the station building, that is really little better in external appearance than an English barn, an oasis of elegance, a “holy of holies” of refined surroundings, has arisen in the desert.
 
Give a cultivated human mind carte blanche to furnish a room after its own ideas of beauty and fitness, and it is marvellous how a picture of itself will presently be reflected in the polished completeness of the undertaking.
 
Character can be read in the furnishing of a room as easily, perhaps easier, than by means of handwriting. Any trained upholsterer of long experience will tell you this. A tradesman in this walk of life knows almost intuitively, after conversing with you for a few minutes, what kind of “fixings” you will most affect. Of course where “the coat must be cut according to the cloth” these remarks do not apply in such force, any more than a Napoleonic mind would discover itself to the expert in reading-character-by-hand-writing in an epistle scratched with the stiff, unexpressive point of a needle.
 
G?ethe intimates that a man’s true character can be capitally tested by ascertaining what are the things232 which he considers ridiculous; and perhaps it will assist us to understand Miss Mundella’s if, bearing this rule in mind, we note the appearance of the station drawing-room, late “parlour,” which she has so charmingly transformed since taking over the keys of her uncle’s establishment. She was not the kind of young lady to follow the absurdities of those ephemeral fashions that, from time to time, appear as plague spots to desecrate the refined interiors of even the best houses in Melbourne and Sydney. No absurd “fallals” in the shape of dusty, velvet-covered soup-ladles, forks, gridirons, rolling-pins, and the like, hung upon the walls of this young lady’s audience chamber.
 
This latest of fashion’s most offensive follies is much in vogue, as we write, in modern Australian houses, and the practice of dragging the kitchen into the drawing-room is surely to be deplored.
 
Doubtless the practical mind of our fellow-colonists found it useful in some cases, hence its origin. These silken effigies of culinary utensils were doubtless originally found to be fitting surroundings for the central point of attraction,—the red-faced female, likewise clothed in velvet, squatting upon the sofa; which lady’s antecedents have been more associated with frying fat than burning midnight oil, and who plays her modern part of “missus” or “me lady” before company with less nervousness than she would otherwise do, were she not surrounded by the fetishes of her past career.
 
In Miss Mundella’s drawing-room everything is reposeful, chaste, and in harmony with the idea of elegance and refinement. From the soft-toned,233 tapestry-like wall-paper to the white marble statuette of Marguerite that stands before the Queen Anne mirror upon the mantel-piece, all is unobtrusive yet beautiful. A few first-class water-colour examples of Gulley and Atkinson, also some well-executed plaques, hang upon the walls. A graceful palm hangs its fronds over a rare Etruscan vase in one corner, and numerous little gems of Dresden china and Venetian glassware—the gifts of various admirers—assist towards forming a picture whose altogether is delightful, whose every detail is a work of art.
 
Miss Mundella, dressed in a directoire gown, of some soft, silken material of an amber colour, fringed with black lace, which costume admirably suits her dark complexion, is seated at a little rosewood secrétaire, and the soft, pink light from the ornamental shades of the lamps upon the centre table casts a glorifying touch of colour upon her calm and handsome features.
 
On the other side of the big table her uncle, Mr. Wilson Giles, is sitting awkwardly upon a low-seated chair, twirling his thumbs, and thinking regretfully of the good old days when he was allowed to enjoy an after-dinner cigar in this very room,—a ruthless edict against which proceeding has gone forth since his niece has taken the reins of power into her able fingers.
 
“Well, Lileth, what is it?” asks the nominal master of the house, “what is it you have got to say? Whatever it is, let’s have it over quick, so as I can have a smoke on the verandah.”
 
“Have your smoke first, uncle, if you like; but please change your coat before you come in here afterwards. You know I don’t object to tobacco; but you234 know those English girls, who are coming over from Simon’s to-morrow night, and I want to have one room in the house, at any rate, that doesn’t smell like a taproom.”
 
Mr. Giles is not an adept at repartee; but it occurs to him to remark, in retaliation, that, unless his niece smokes herself upon the sly, there must be several rooms in the house free from the odour of the fragrant weed. He also means to ask that lady how she knows what are the true characteristics of a taproom, but his cutting sarcasms do not arrange themselves with sufficient facility for him to give them vocal form ere Miss Mundella again speaks.
 
“You asked me, uncle, to consider two or three schemes you mentioned to me for getting rid of the monetary responsibility that rests upon your shoulders with regard to the P.Ns. you gave to Dyesart.”
 
“Well, what d’you think of ’em?”
 
“Well, uncle, I really don’t see why you need trouble yourself further in the matter, now that you have placed the—er—arranging of affairs with me. But I will tell you, just to show you how little you understand this kind of business, why your ideas would not work out satisfactorily; like that remarkably risky one you tried in Sydney, and of which, perhaps, you have not yet heard the end.”
 
Lileth adds this last sentence as a sort of cold douche, to extinguish any rising indignation her previous words might have aroused.
 
Giles reddens, forces his eyes out from his head a bit, and, gasping, presently returns to his normal state of weak submission.
 
“If the notes,” Miss Mundella continues, “are to 235 be found where the doctor’s body lies, wherever that may be, and are payable to bearer, Mr. Puttis, or any one we might send, might—I do not say would-be able to cash them for themselves, or at any rate raise money upon them. Possibly whilst trying to do this they might be asked to say how they became possessed of them, and what lawyers call mala fides might be suspected. Then you would probably get into trouble as well as they.”
 
“Well, then, what d’you propose?”
 
“I find, also,” continues the young lady, without noticing the interrupting question, “I find also that the destruction of the notes would not clear you from your liability. For by this Act of Parliament, 17 and 18 of Victoria,”—turning over the leaves of a new edition of “Byles on Bills,”—“by section eighty-seven, ‘it is provided that, in the case of any action——’”
 
“Oh, cut it short, Lileth!” exclaims the sufferer on the low-seated chair. “Will it do to destroy the notes instead of the nephew? That’s what I want ter know.”
 
The squatter’s niece continues, as if no interruption had occurred, “‘In the case of any action founded on a Bill of Exchange, Promissory Note, or other negotiable instrument, the court or judge——’”
 
“Oh Lord, what are yer driving at?” groans Mr. Giles.
 
“‘Court or judge has power to order that the loss of such instrument,’—now, listen to this, uncle,—‘the loss of such instrument shall not be set up, provided an indemnity is given, to the satisfaction of the court, or judge, or a master, against the claims of any other persons upon such negotiable instrument.’”
 
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Although the fair young lawyer’s powers of facial command are nearly perfect, she has much ado to refrain from smiling at the muddled look of the red-faced man opposite to her.
 
“Don’t you remember how these notes were drawn? On demand, or at sight, or bearer?” she asks.
 
“I’m jiggered if I do,” returns Mr. Giles. “There was some talk about—of my making the notes come due at a certain time; then Dyesart, he up and says ‘that might prove awkward to you, make them on demand after a certain date.’ And then—but I forget how we fixed it up at last. Don’t exactly ‘recco-member.’”
 
“At any rate, uncle,” says Miss Mundella, rising and moving towards her relative, with the dignified grace an empress might have envied, “at any rate, we can be sure of this, that if this nephew finds the notes, or even has a knowledge that you ever obtained money from his uncle under a written contract to return the same, you will pretty certainly have to pay up. I feel sure this was the meaning of Dyesart getting young Angland to come all this way up here. I can’t see what else it can be. By-the-bye, I have young Angland’s photograph here. Would you like to see it?”
 
“How the dev——” begins Giles, but correcting himself continues, “How the goodness did you come by that? You’re a wonder! Swelp me if you’re not.”
 
“Oh, I made my arrangements,” answers Lileth in her rich, contralto voice. And this is all the young lady deigns to reply.
 
Holding the photograph in her firm, white hand all the time her uncle is looking at it, Miss Mundella237 continues: “And now, once for all, uncle, you will please leave the whole matter to me. You will spoil my plans, possibly, if you interfere. You can assist our mutual objects, however, in this way: you can refrain from drinking too much whilst young Angland is here. You are horribly indiscreet when you have had too much. And another thing, be ready to take any hints of mine, and don’t cross me in anything I propose.”
 
Just as the low, steady voice closes its melodious utterings, the door of the drawing-room is flung open, and a white, fluttering female figure appears upon its threshold.
 
It is that of an exceedingly pretty young girl, petite and (strange to say in this part of the world) rosy. A wondrous mane of golden-yellow hair falls about her dimpled cheeks and symmetrical neck and shoulders in such profusion that she has the appearance, as the lamps in the room shine upon her, of being surrounded with an aureole of silken rays of light. In fact, as she stands in the framework of the doorway, before the dark background of the passage, hesitating whether to disturb the two people in the room, her figure for all the world might be that of a miraculous picture of an angel of light, about to come to life and interrupt the machinations of those evil-minded plotters before her, who glance up anxiously at this interruption to their interview.
 
“Oh, papa, I’m afraid you’re busy. I didn’t mean, truly, to interrupt you. Shall I run away?”
 
“No, my dear, not at all,” responds Mr. Giles, rising, and evidently glad to thus close the tête-à-tête with his dark-browed niece. “Come on to the238 verandah, Glory, and talk to me whilst I have a cigar. There’s nothing more to say, I suppose, Lileth? I leave all to you.”
 
“No, uncle, nothing more,” replies Miss Mundella, adding, “Don’t keep dear Glory out too long in the cold. She’s not fever proof, and the cool evenings here are dangerous to people from the south. You’ll come in, dear, presently, and give us a little Mendelssohn before supper, won’t you?”
 
“Oh yes, Cousin Lileth. But can’t you come on to the verandah with us? Oh my!” Miss Glory Giles adds excitedly, as her bright glance falls upon the photograph of Claude that Lileth has allowed to remain upon the table. “Wherever did you get that? So good, too. He’s not here, is he? Oh! he’s a perfect darling, and saved poor Fluffy and me from—oh! such a terrible lot of larrikins. And what’s his name?”
 
There is no knowing how long Glory would have continued her avalanche of excited encomiums and questions relative to young Angland, had she not been interrupted by her father. For the young lady before us is the damsel whose blue eyes created such havoc in our hero’s breast during his short stay in Brisbane, and she is now pleasurably regarding the sun-picture of her “own hero,” as she always calls Claude when relating the story of his prowess to her school-girl friends, not knowing his real name. And what better name would young Angland have desired, had he only known the honour thus done to his memory?
 
At the rather anxiously expressed request of Mr. Giles, his daughter, who has just left school for good, relates, without reserve, the whole story of her239 adventure near the Brisbane Public Gardens. Holding Claude’s photograph all the while, she winds up her breathless recital by repeating her former questions.
 
Miss Mundella, knowing that her uncle will expect her to take the initiative and smooth down this awkward discovery of Glory’s, that bids fair to prove a complication of the conspirators’ scheme against Claude, has quickly determined what course to pursue, and immediately marches her wits forward against the new danger.
 
“I may as well tell Glory all about it,” Lileth observes, turning her dark eyes up to Giles, and signalling to him to keep silence with the nearest approach to a wink that she has ever condescended to employ.
 
“This young man, Glory dear,” she goes on, smiling upon her fair cousin, and placing her hand upon Miss Giles’s shoulder, “is the nephew of Dr. Dyesart, the explorer, of whose death we were speaking during dinner. He will, possibly, be here before long, on his way to attempt the discovery of his uncle’s grave. Mr. Angland, for that is the nephew’s name, was staying at the same hotel in Sydney with my brother Abaddon,—Cousin Jack you used to call him. My brother, finding that Mr. Angland was coming up here, sent me a photograph of him. I don’t know how he got it. I suppose it was given to him. Now, you’re not a silly school-girl any longer, and I think I can trust you with something I am about to say. Can I, dear?”
 
“Oh yes, Cousin Lileth. But,” hesitatingly, “but it’s not anything bad you’ve heard about Mr. Angland, is it? If it is, pray don’t tell me, please.240 I always want to be able to think of him as a hero.”
 
“Well, dear,” answers Miss Mundella, laughing softly, as she recognizes in this confession of hero-worship the characteristics of a simple mind that her own powerful will may some day find it profitable to employ. “Well, dear, you can still continue to do so, as far as I know to the contrary. It’s nothing against Mr. Angland, but just this. You know my brother Abaddon is just a little wild. He has been so long up here, you know; and when he went for his holiday to Sydney, he got—well—rather ‘rampageous’ I think is a good word to express what I mean.”
 
Mr. Giles, standing a little distance from the two ladies, wonders what on earth his niece is about to evolve from her inner consciousness.
 
“Now, Glory, I’d rather,” continues Lileth, “I’d rather you did not inform Mr. Angland, if he comes here, that we are any connection of Abaddon’s, for I believe my brother got into seriou............