‘I shall begin to cry if we go on much longer,’ said the fair Jean, ‘and Mrs. Lilburne will be mildly reproachful, dear soul! if we are late for dinner.’

So these young people lost no time in joining their friends, and the buggy pulled up at the Palace Hotel in something like ‘record time’ between ‘the Mount’ and the city, which, indeed, had been carefully noted, and was publicly known to all who had pretensions to sporting accuracy.

The next morning saw the departure of Alister Lilburne and his wife from the Gold City, which [236] ]had been to her a refuge, nay, a home—a retreat from the pressure of care, the uncertainty of position, for all these days; departure from the people whom she had learned to love, and who had loved her with the deep, abiding conviction based upon gratitude and respect, which outlives ephemeral popularity—becoming welded into a cult or, as in Eastern lands, into a Faith. Whatever might have been the feelings with which the ordinary population of Pilot Mount regarded their late Hospital Superintendent, a handsome and indeed munificent endowment, to be devoted to the building and fitting up of a new wing, testified to Elinor Lilburne’s enduring interest in the welfare of the institution to which she had devoted some of the best years of her life.

. . . . . . . . .

Arnold Banneret’s financial status had now developed by such ‘leaps and bounds,’ to use the handy parliamentary phrase, that he found himself placed in an entirely novel position—one, indeed, of which he had never had previous experience; nor had he, in any mood of day-dreaming, been confronted with such. Yet, now, a decision must be made—a momentous question settled definitely. His income, large even for a golden claimholder, was annually increasing. Money was no object, to speak familiarly, yet it was the question before the House—the Legislative Council represented by himself, personally; and indeed he had been an M.L.C. for some years, in right of which, and a talisman worn on his watch chain, he was entitled to free railway passage throughout the length and [237] ]breadth of New South Wales. It was a pity that it did not apply to all British dominions, some of his fellow-legislators thought; but that privilege could not be arranged just yet. Still, in that day, when the United States of Australasia, with a population of a hundred millions, dominating the South Pacific, from New Guinea to Victoria Land within the Antarctic Circle, in alliance, too, with the United States and the Dominion of Canada, form a Pan-Anglican Power, prompt and efficient to regulate the world’s war and peace, who shall say them nay?

The voyage home! Of this momentous ‘trip,’ as it was called in light, almost sportive reference, the now successful, honoured, and wealthy Australian proprietor had often thought. But neither the means nor the opportunity for such a decisive movement had as yet been forthcoming. The children had been too young, the financial outlook too restricted, in his earlier married life. Not that he or his wife had any ardent desire to make the change. They were attached to their native land; the climate agreed with them—they were not sure that the rigorous seasons of the ancestral isle would suit the immature brood, in which were centred the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, of their daily life. It had been relegated by consent to the region of by and by, where so many of the fairy legends of childhood were to come true; and now, slowly, imperceptibly, yet not less surely, the years had flown. Those years which divide early manhood and womanhood from middle age had departed never to return.

[238]
]The future—the ‘by and by’—which had loomed so far and mist-coloured in their early life, had been overtaken. It had become the present, to be felt and reckoned with. The children had grown up. Of the boys, one was at Cambridge, the other working hard to pass exams., and panting for the happy day when he should see his name gazetted for a commission in an Imperial cavalry regiment. Of the girls, younger by several years, Hermione, almost ready to ‘come out,’ as the Society phrase is; the others, school-girls, receiving daily tuition from governesses, music masters, teachers of drawing, singing, languages,—all the varied education which goes to equip the modern maiden for her place in the ranks of womanhood.

Now these young people had a natural ambition to ‘see the world.’ They had read widely, if not deeply, and were impatient to have tangible evidence of the historic glories of older lands. Of paintings and statuary their knowledge had been necessarily limited, although far from ordinary collections had been accessible in the galleries and museums of the metropolis in which they resided, and others which they had visited. Their artistic tastes, though not wholly unformed, were capable of higher development. They yearned for closer acquaintance with the capitals of the world—the ancient world. They ardently desired to behold Rome, Venice, Greece, Paris, Cairo. Reading was delightful. They could never be sufficiently grateful to their parents who had indulged their legitimate enthusiasm to the fullest [239] ]amount possible to their opportunities. But, of course, it was not, could never be the same. They longed to stand upon the Bridge of Sighs, ‘a palace and a prison on each hand’; to watch ‘Old Tiber through a marble wilderness rise with her yellow waves’; to visit the Coliseum by moonlight; to stand on Mars Hill, and ‘yon tower-capped Acropolis, which seems the very clouds to kiss,’—in short, to view all sorts of instructive, entrancing places. After such experiences they did not care what happened. They would have seen everything worth seeing. They could no longer be classed as ‘mere colonials’—they would be citizens of the world—akin to the most enviable sections of English society. Mrs. Banneret, though with less enthusiasm, agreed in the main with her daughters. Time and circumstance were propitious. Who could tell whether so favourable a combination would remain unaltered?

Besides, she was anxious to see her sons once more. It was nearly three years since they had left their native land. Her husband secretly sympathised, though for a different class of reasons. He had not, could not have, the instinctive, passionate yearning with which the tender maternal heart agonises, so to speak, for the embrace of the sons whom she has brought into the world; for the sight of their dear faces; to feel once more the touch of cheek, of lips, of handclasp; to hear the joyous exultation of greeting after long absence; to mark anew the likeness to either parent, which the advancing [240] ]years may have imprinted yet more distinctly on face or form.

In a measure, of course, Arnold Banneret shared these sacred sensations. He was proud of his boys, of their good looks and athletic development; fond of them also, although with less intensity than the mother that bore them—holiest and most ancient tie. He had watched over their education up to the University stage, and now, having, as he told himself, done his duty by them, awaited with some anxiety, though with reasonable confidence, the choice of a profession which it behoved them to make. For himself, he looked forward, of course, with pleasurable anticipation to revisiting the scenes, so fondly remembered, of the halcyon time of early manhood, when, fresh from college, he had roamed over the Continent with a comrade of congenial culture. Together they had followed the course of the majestic, solemn Rhine—mused over the ruined towers of Sternfels and Liebenstein—gazed at Rolandseck, at once the pride and beauty of the noble river. Rome, Athens, Florence, Paris—how the rapture of travel, the joy of companionship, the careless wanderings over hill and dale, city and plain, came freshly back! Could but one’s youth return!