'If you don't like me better than anything else in all the world, however different, I will never stand at the altar with you.' And she moved her camp-stool perhaps an inch away.

'In the way of loving, of course I do.'

'Then why do you grieve when you've got what you like best?'

'You don't understand, Jemima, what a spirit of adventure means.'

'I think I do, or I shouldn't be going to marry you. That's quite as great an adventure as a journey to Sydney. You ought to be very glad to get off, now you're going to settle down as a married man.'

'Think what two hundred pounds would be, Jemima;—in the way of furniture.'

'That's papa's putting in, I know. I hate all that hankering after filthy lucre. You ought to be ashamed of wanting to go so far away just when you're engaged You wouldn't care about leaving me, I suppose the least.'

'I should always be thinking of you.'

'Yes, you would! But suppose I wasn't thinking of you. Suppose I took to thinking of somebody else. How would it be then?'

'You wouldn't do that, Jemima.'