CHAPTER VIII "THE LIGHT THAT NEVER WAS ON SEA OR LAND."
CHAPTER IX. ELEVEN P.M
CHAPTER X. MRS. READE'S ADVICE
CHAPTER XI. UNTIL CHRISTMAS
CHAPTER XII "THE GROUND-WHIRL OF THE PERISHED LEAVES OF HOPE."
CHAPTER XIII. RACHEL ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARRIAGE
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IT was in the afternoon that Lucilla again expected her guests, on the day of the ball given at Adelonga in honour of the coming of age of her absent stepson; and the hospitable arrangements characteristic of bush households on such occasions, were made for their reception on the usual Adelonga scale. All the visitors were to be "put up" of course; and from the exhaustless piles of material stowed away in the ample store-rooms, bed-rooms were improvised in every hole and corner, and beds made up wherever beds could decently go – in the store-rooms themselves, in the school-room, in the laundry, in the gardener's cottage, as well as in the numerous guest-chambers with which this, in common with other Australian "country seats," was regularly supplied.
Bright log fires burned on every hearth; bright spring flowers adorned all the ladies' dressing-tables; stupendous viands piled the pantry shelves and filled the spacious kitchens with delectable odours.
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"Not at all. He will quite understand that there are reasons why he should be exceptionally treated."
"And do you think I will make him understand that?" she burst out, with pathetic indignation that filled her soft eyes with tears. "Do you think I would be so – so infamously rude and cruel? Oh, Mr. Kingston" – she never called him "Graham" except in her letters, though he tried his best to make her – "you don't want to spoil all my pleasure to-night, which was going to be such a happy night?"
