"Why, he ain't got no trade to speak of, but he's warehouseman to Campbell and Co., in Melbourne, the merchants, you know," said Mrs. Peck.
"Then he must have a good situation and regular payment—he ought not to be so badly off," said Mr. Dempster.
"There's such expenses with a family in Melbourne, where there's much sickness especially. A very decent, good-tempered fellow he is, and don't spend his wages away from his home. Poor Mary! I well remember the day she was married, and how pretty she looked in her white gown, and how she says to me, 'Oh, my mother! I can't abear to leave you, even for James,' and now she is agoing to leave all of us. And when little Betsy was born, and I was a nursing of her, she looked up and says she, 'Oh, mother! I don't think as I'm long for this world;' but I roused her, and said she wasn't a-dying then, and my words was true, for she was not going then; but now to think my being so far from her and her so bad."
Then Mrs. Peck wiped her eyes energetically and sobbed a little. Mr. Dempster seemed to be soft-hearted and simple-minded. She thought she had made an impression, and she endeavoured to deepen it.
"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."