"Good morning, sir; I hope I may see you happily married yourself some of these days."
Sam laughed, "that would be a fine joke," he thought, "but why shouldn't it be, eh? I suppose it must come some time or another. I shall begin to look out; I don't expect I shall be very easily suited. Heigh ho!"
I expect, however, Mr. Sam, that you are just in the state of mind to fall headlong in love with the first girl you meet with a nose on her face; let us hope, therefore, that she may be eligible.
But here is home again, and here is the father standing majestic and broad in the verandah, and the mother with her arm round his neck, both waiting to give him a hearty morning's welcome. And there is Doctor Mulhaus kneeling in spectacles before his new Grevillea Victoria, the first bud of which is just bursting into life; and the dogs catch sight of him and dash forward, barking joyfully; and as the ready groom takes his horse, and the fat housekeeper looks out all smiles, and retreats to send in breakfast, Sam thinks to himself, that he could not leave his home and people, not for the best wife in broad Australia; but then you see, he knew no better.
"What makes my boy look so happy this morning?" asked his mother. "Has the bay mare foaled, or have you negotiated James Brentwood's young dog? Tell us, that we may participate."
"None of these things have happened, mother; but I feel in rather a holiday humour, and I'm thinking of going down to Garoopna this morning, and spending a day or two with Jim."
"I will throw a shoe after you for luck," said his mother. "See, the Doctor is calling you."
Sam went to the Doctor, who was intent on his flower. "Look here, my boy; here is something new: the handsomest of the Grevilleas, as I live. It has opened since I was here."
"Ah!" said Sam, "this is the one that came from the Quartz Ranges, last year; is it not? It has not flowered with you before."
"If Linnaeus wept and prayed over the first piece of English furze which he saw," said the Doctor, "what everlasting smelling-bottle hysterics he would have gone into in this country! I don't sympathise with his tears much, though, myself; though a new flower is a source of the greatest pleasure to me."