Black Agnes was made over to her entirely, and she rode and jumped fences to her heart's content. She went to the opera whenever she liked. She was the belle of all the balls; and in the best part of Melbourne her splendid home was being prepared for her, where she was to reign as a queen of beauty and fashion, with unlimited power to "aggravate other women"--which is supposed by some cynics to be the highest object of female ambition. And Mr. Kingston bore with extreme complacency the jokes of his club friends on his defection from that faith in the superior advantages of celibacy, which he and some of them had held in common; for he knew they all admired his lady-love extravagantly, if they did not actually go so far as to envy him her possession. And he attended her wherever she went with the utmost assiduity. When the winter was nearly over, an event occurred in the Hardy family which made a change in this state of things. Mrs. Thornley, the second daughter, who lived in the country, having married a wealthy landowner, who preferred all the year round to manage his own property, presented Mrs. Hardy with her first grandchild; and being in rather delicate health afterwards, wrote to beg her mother to come and stay with her, and of course to bring Rachel. To this invitation Mrs. Hardy responded eagerly by return of post, and bade Rachel pack up quickly for an early start. Rachel was delighted with the prospect, even though it involved her separation from her betrothed; and her preparations were soon completed. Mr. Hardy was handed over to his daughter Beatrice, "to be kept till called for;" one old servant was placed in charge of the Toorak house, and others on board wages; and Mrs. Hardy, paying a round of farewell calls, intimated to her friends that she was likely to make a long visit. Rachel rose early on the day of her departure. It was a very lovely morning in the earliest dawn of spring, full of that delicate, delicious, champagny freshness which belongs to Australian mornings. She opened her window, while yet half dressed, to let in the sweet air blowing off the sea.