At last he rose between two songs, and stood still a moment looking down on her. "I'm afraid I have trespassed on your kindness," he said. "I am going back to the bush with a survey expedition to-morrow, and I do not know when I shall be fortunate enough to see you again." Barbara smiled a little. "That," she said, "is for you to decide. We are 'At home' every Thursday in the afternoon--and, in your case, in the evening." He made her a little inclination, and turned away, while Barbara sat still, looking straight in front of her, but quite oblivious of the music, until she turned with a laugh, and the girl who sat next to her glanced round. "Was the man very amusing?" she said. "No," said Barbara, reflectively. "I scarcely think he was. I gave him permission to call upon us, and never told him where we lived." "Still, he would, like everybody else in this city, know it already." "He may," said Barbara. "That, I suppose, is what I felt at the time, but now I scarcely think he does." "Then one would fancy that to meet a young man of his appearance who didn't know all about you would be something quite new," said her companion, drily. Barbara flushed ever so slightly, but her companion noticed it. She was quite aware that if she was made much of in that city it was, in part, at least, due to the fact that she was the niece of a well-known man, and had considerable possessions. VI. AN ARDUOUS JOURNEY. It was late at night, and raining hard, when a line of dripping mules stood waiting beneath the pines that crowded in upon the workings of the Elktail mine. A few lights blinked among the log-sheds that clustered round the mouth of the rift in the steep hillside, and a warm wind that drove the deluge before it came wailing out of the blackness of the valley beneath them. The mine was not a big one, but it was believed that it paid Thomas P. Saxton and his friends tolerably well, in spite of the heavy cost of transport to the nearest smelter. A somewhat varying vein of galena, which is silver-lead, was worked there, and Saxton had, on several occasions, declined an offer to buy it, made on behalf of a company. On the night in question he stood in the doorway of one of the sheds with Brooke, for whom the Surveyor had no more work just then, beside him. Brooke wore long boots and a big rubber coat, on whose dripping surface the light of the lantern Saxton held flickered. Here and there a man was dimly visible beside the mules, but beyond them impenetrable darkness closed in. "It's a wicked kind of night," said Saxton, who, Brooke fancied, nevertheless, appeared quite content with it. "You know what you've got to do?"