"Now, I can't talk about Mr. Kingston any more. I have all my packing to do yet, and I must run away and see after it. Good-bye, dearest child. Mind you write often. I wish you were going with me--I can't bear to leave you behind." Rachel flung her arms round her small cousin with characteristic fervour. "When do you think you will come home again?" she inquired tremulously, almost in a whisper. "I can't say, dear, exactly." "Before Christmas, won't you?" "I think so; it will all depend on circumstances." "Oh, _do_ be back by Christmas," Rachel pleaded, with an almost tragic eagerness. "It would be dreadful if Christmas came and you were so far away!" "Am I so necessary to the festivities of the season?" laughed Mrs. Reade, much touched and flattered. "Well, I'll see what I can do. Suppose I try and bring Lucilla and the children back, and make a regular family gathering of it?" "Oh, if you _could_!" sighed Rachel. All the terrors of her time of trial would be gone, she thought, if she could have these two faithful cousins beside her. So Mrs. Reade went off by the morning train, tolerably easy in her mind. She took her big husband with her, "to keep him," as she said, "out of mischief;" and she stayed away much longer than she had intended to do. She was delighted with Adelonga, and with her sister's companionship. Ned, also, while being kept in order, enjoyed himself excessively; and as long as he was "good" in the matter of his besetting sin, his lady and mistress liked him to enjoy himself. There were plenty of bush gaieties in the shape of sporting meetings and balls, and the time slipped away rapidly, as time at Adelonga usually did. A dance at the Digbys' gave Mrs. Reade the desired opportunity for making the acquaintance of Mr. Dalrymple's people, and she learned a few facts with respect to that gentleman which, while considerably aggravating her alarm, tended to modify and dignify the impressions of him that her mother had given her. Lucilla showed her a fine photograph of his powerful, melancholy, highbred face, and she was quite overcome by it. "Oh, dear me!" she said to herself, with a sort of angry dismay, "it is no wonder that Rachel was infatuated. If _I_ had had attentions from that man--little as I am given to falling in love--I think I should have been as bad as she." When Christmas came the sisters were still at Adelonga. Lucilla could not leave home, and persuaded Beatrice not to leave her. They contented themselves with sending pretty presents and many loving messages and excuses to their relatives in Melbourne, and plunged into a series of festive entertainments that lasted for several weeks. Then suddenly, as she was dressing for a ball, Mrs. Reade was startled to receive a letter from her mother, begging her to return to town at once, as Rachel was very ill. CHAPTER XII. "THE GROUND-WHIRL OF THE PERISHED LEAVES OF HOPE."