Such being the state of matters, it was by no means surprising that Harriet Folleton, a girl of great beauty and soft, enthralling manner, but of so moderate a development of intellect that she might have been called, if any one had been so rudely uncompromising as to speak the unvarnished truth about so pretty a creature, ‘a fool proper,’ should arrive in the paternal brougham before mid-day, and therefore share luncheon with her dear Antonia in much innocence and peace. It would have been even less surprising to any one who had possessed the requisite leisure and opportunity to study that fair girl’s ways, that, as the two friends were strolling near the strand, where a giant fig-tree shadowed half the little bay, a boat should pull round the adjoining headland, manned by four man-of-war-looking yachtsmen, with the _White Falcon_ on their breasts and hat-ribbons, while from the boat, as she ran up to the jetty, stepped the gracious form of Count von Schätterheims. ‘Why, you naughty girl,’ said Antonia, instantly divining the ruse, ‘I do believe you planned to meet the Count here, and disobey your father. So this coming to see me was all deception! How dare you treat me like this? I have a great mind to tell your father, and never speak to you again.’ ‘Oh, pray don’t, Antonia dearest,’ whimpered the softly insincere one, ‘I only said I _might_ be here this afternoon; and he said he was going off to Batavia, or Russia, or India, or somewhere. And papa was so dreadful, that I thought there was no harm in it. I shall never see him again—oh!’ Here the despairingly undecided damsel commenced to weep, and so interfere with the natural charms of her fine and uncommon complexion, that Antonia, inwardly resolving to restrict the acquaintance to conventional limits in future, was constrained to soothe and console her. Meanwhile the Count, who had been engaged in an earnest colloquy with his crew, advanced with his customary gallantry to meet them. ‘My boad is on de zhore And my barg is on de zea; is not dat the voord of your boet? I come to make farevell to you, Miss Frankstein; to you, Miss Folledon, to lay at your veet dis hertz—mein hertz—vich is efer for dee so vondly beating.’ ‘And are you really going to leave us, Count?’ asked Antonia, without any particular interest or otherwise in the noble foreigner, of whom she was becoming wearied and increasingly distrustful. Then happening to look at Harriet Folleton’s face, she saw that she was deathly pale, and trembled as if about to fall. The Count, too, though complimentary as usual, seemed annoyed and uneasy at her presence. The Count, in answer to the question, pointed to his yacht, a beautiful schooner, more fair than honest of aspect, and of marvellous sailing powers, which had, perhaps, more than any of his reported possessions, tended to sustain his prestige since his arrival in Sydney.