Jack Windsor, upon Mr. Banks’s promotion and marriage, became manager of the whole consolidated establishment, with a proportionate advance in salary. He developed his leading qualities of shrewdness and energy to their fullest capacity under the influence of prosperity. Being perfectly satisfied with his position and duties, having a good home, a contented wife, the means of educating his large family, the respect of the whole country-side, and the habit of saving a large portion of his liberal salary, besides an abundance of the exact species of occupation and exercise which suited him, it is not probable that he will make any attempt to ‘better himself.’ It is not certain that Mrs. Windsor would not favour the investment of their savings in property ‘down the country’ for the sake of the children, etc.; but Jack will not hear of it. ‘I should feel first-rate,’ he says scornfully, ‘shouldn’t I, in a place of my own, with a man and a boy, and forty or fifty head of crawling cattle to stare at while they were getting fit for market? That’s not my style. It wouldn’t suit any of us—not you either, old woman, to be poking about, helping at the wash-tub or something, or peelin’ potatoes for dinner. We couldn’t stand it after the life we’ve had here. I couldn’t do without half-a-dozen stabled hacks and a lot of smart men to keep up to the mark. Give me something _big_ to work at, done well, and paying for good keep and good spending all round. Five hundred and forty head of fat cattle cut out in two days like the last Mildool lot, and all the country-side at the muster—that’s John Windsor’s style—none of your Hawkesbury corn-shelling, butter-and-eggs racket. You ought to have married old Homminey, Carry, if that’s what you wanted. Besides, after thinking and saving and driving up to high pressure for the master so long, it would feel unnatural-like to be only working for myself.‘ So the argument was settled. Mr. Windsor had, it seems, tasted too fully of the luxury of power and command to relinquish it for humble independence. The undisputed sway over a large staff of working hands, the unquestioned control of money and credit, within certain limits, had become with him more and more an indispensable habitude. Accustomed to the tone of the leader and the centurion, he could not endure the thought of changing his wide eventful life into the decorous dulness of the small landed proprietor. Mrs. Windsor, too, who dressed exceedingly well, and was admitted on equal terms to the society of the district, a position which, from her tact, good sense, and extremely agreeable appearance, she suitably filled and fully deserved, would probably, as her husband forcibly explained, have felt the change almost as much as himself. So Mr. Neuchamp was spared the annoyance of looking out for a new manager.