Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

ARCHER'S PROPOSAL. 347
so on, like the directions of the Aulic Council to the Archduke.
He was not to go expressly to Durham; but if he found himself
in that part of the world, he might get a short-horned bull. He
need not go to Scotland unless he liked; but, if he did, he might
buy a couple of collies, &c., &c.
George attended the ram sales in Saxony, and just ran on to
Vienna, thinking, with the philosophy of an Australian, that, if
he did fall in love with his cousin, he might not care to travel far
from her, and that therefore she might "keep." However, he
came at last, when Archer had finished his honeymoon; and
there he was in the drawing-room at Casterton.
Mary was not very much surprised when it was all put before
her. She had said to Charles, in old times, "I know I have relations somewhere; when I am rich they will acknowledge me ";
and, just for one instant, the suspicion crossed her mind that her
relations might have heard of the fortune Lord Saltire had left
her. It was unjust and impossible, and in an instant she felt it
to be so. Possibly the consciousness of her injustice made her
reception of her cousin somewhat warmer.
He was certainly very handsome and very charming. He had
been brought up by his father the most punctilious dandy in the
southern hemisphere, and thrown from a boy among the best
society in the colony; so he was quite able to make himself at
home everywhere. If there was a fault in his manner, it was
that there was just a shade too much lazy ease in the presence
of ladies. One has seen that lately, however, in other young
gentlemen, not educated in the bush, to a greater extent; so we
must not be hard upon him. When Lady Hainault and Lady
Ascot heard that a cousin of Mary's had just turned up from the
wilds of Australia, they looked at one another in astonishment,
and agreed that he must be a wild man. But, when they had
gone down and sat on him, as a committee of two, for an hour,
they- both pronounced him charming. And so he was.
Lord Hainault, on receiving this report, could do no less than
ask him to stay a day or two. Anld so his luggage was sent for
to Twyford, and the good Archer left leaving him in possession.
Lord Saltire had been travelling round to all his estates. He
had taken it into his head, about a month before this, that it was
time that he should get into one of his great houses, and die there.
He told Lady Ascot so, and advised her to come with him; but
she still held on by Lord Charles Herries's children and Mary,
and said she would wait. So he had gone away, with no one but
such senseless ones as these. I would that was all one had to complain of. I
hope the noble old sport is not on its last legs. But one trembles to think what
will become of it, when the comparatively few high-minded men who are keeping things straight are gone.