"I don't like to speak harshly to you, my dear," Mrs. Hardy proceeded, in a rather more gentle, but still irritated tone. "Only you _must_ not vex me with such absurd and childish notions. I know it is only a passing whim--you are over-tired, and you are hurt because Mr. Kingston paid Miss Hale so much attention, though it is only what he does to all women, without meaning anything whatever; but still it is a serious and horrible thing--breaking an engagement, a really happy engagement, as yours is--jilting a kind, good man, after giving him every encouragement--even to _think_ of! Don't let me hear you mention it again, unless you want to break my heart altogether. And after all I have done for you--I don't want to boast, but I _have_ been a good aunt to you, Rachel, and you would have been in a poor place but for me--the least you can do is to respect my wishes, especially as you know I wish nothing but what is for your real good and welfare." Rachel wandered back to her bed, laid her head gently on the pillow, and closed her eyes. Mrs. Hardy in the dead silence that presently ensued, was relieved to think that she had "settled off" at last; but it was not sleep that kept her so quiet--it was the calmness of defeat and despair. CHAPTER V. RACHEL'S FIRST VISIT IN MELBOURNE. In the last week of August, when the place was looking its loveliest--the rustic gables of the pretty house all hung with wistaria, and the shrubberies full of fragrant bushes of purple and white lilac--Mrs. Hardy, Mr. Kingston, and Rachel took their departure from Adelonga. It was to one of them a truly heart-breaking business. Rachel stood on the verandah while the horses were being put to, clasping Lucilla and the baby alternately to her heart, and wept without restraint, until her eyes were swollen, and her delicate colour resolved into unbecoming red patches, and there was scarcely a trace of her beauty and brightness left. No one but herself was at all able to realise what this moment cost her. She was not only leaving a place where she had spent the happiest period of her youth; not only parting from friends with whom she had established the most tender and sympathetic relations; she was closing a chapter, or rather a brief passage, which was the one inspired poem of her life; and she was saying good-bye to Hope. As long as she was at Adelonga, there was the chance that Mr. Dalrymple might come back--at any rate, notwithstanding the Queensland arrangements, there was a constant impression that he was near. And as long as she was at Adelonga she had felt bold to strive, by various feeble and ineffectual devices, to extricate herself from her engagement. Now she was going where it seemed to her her lover would never be allowed to reach her, and where in a hard world of money and fashion, and under the terrible dominion of "the house," she would be a helpless victim in the hands of Fate.