‘That is,’ said Ernest, completing Paul’s sentence, over which the worthy merchant appeared to hesitate somewhat—‘that is, as close as two people very widely dissimilar in taste and temperament can ever be.’ ‘Perhaps there _may_ be a slightly different way of looking at things, and so on,’ said his old friend cautiously; ‘but all crafts are not built out of the same sort of timber, or on the same lines. Some are oak, some of American pine, some of teak, some of white gum; some with a smart shear, some with a good allowance of beam; and they can’t be altered over much. As the keel’s laid down, so the boat’s bound to float.’ ‘H—m!’ replied Ernest thoughtfully, ‘that involves a large question—several large questions, in fact. Good-bye for the present.’ How many memories crowded upon the brain of Ernest Neuchamp as he once more trod the massive sandstone flags underneath the portico of the verandah at Morahmee! The freshly raked gravel walks, the boscage of glowing green which formed the living walls of the renovated shrubberies, the well-remembered murmur of the low-toned restless surge, the odour of the unchanged deep, all these sharply contrasted sights and sounds after his weary sojourn in the desert composed for him a page of Boccaccio, framed a panel of Watteau-painting. He was a knight in an enchanted Armida garden. And as Antonia, freshly attired in evening dress, radiant with unmistakable welcome, appeared to greet him on the threshold of the open door, he felt as if the knight who had done his devoir was about to receive the traditional guerdon, so necessary to the perfect equilibrium of the world of chivalry and romance. ‘Welcome from Palestine!’ she said, unconsciously following out his train of thought, as she ran forward and clasped him by the hand. ‘I don’t know whether one can call any part of the bush the Holy Land; but you have been away quite long enough to have gone there. Had you vowed a vow never to come back till rain fell? People may stay away too long sometimes.’ Here she gazed at Ernest with a long, searching, humbled gaze, which suddenly brightened as when the summer cloud catches the partially obscured sun-ray. ‘But here is Augusta, coming to ask you if Rainbar won’t be swallowed up in a second deluge now that the drought has broken up, as she is credibly informed is always the case in Australia!’ A mischievous twinkle in her mirthful eye informed Ernest that his cousin’s peculiarities had been accurately measured by the prepossessing reviewer before him.