As these latter individuals exercise no further influence over the destinies of our principal _dramatis personæ_, we may as well, ere we finally take leave of them, add the information that Alice (having supported them much better than Jack Hargrave had done in his best days), at the expiration of two years sent them out at her own expense to join that worthy, who, reformed by seasickness and the amenities of convict discipline, had obtained a ticket of leave, by reason of which privilege he was enacting the part of a penitent bullock-driver, to the admiration of all right-minded settlers in Australia. The month of May had begun to temper with a dash of sunshine the fine old English east winds of April, which annually sow their share of the seeds of consumption in the glorious British constitution--Harry Coverdale had ceased to oppress the brute creation, leaving foxes and pheasants to increase and multiply by antagonistic progression--and all London was flocking to the Royal Academy Exhibition, to see a great many very original portraits of gentlemen, who scarcely looked the character after all--when one fine morning Alice received a letter from the modern Babylon, in Mrs. Crane’s handwriting. Having eagerly perused it, she exclaimed,-- “Kate has written a most kind and pressing invitation to us to come and stay with them; Mr. Crane wishes it as much as she does.” “Or as much as she orders him to do rather,” muttered Coverdale, _sotto voce_. “Of course you can have no objection to my accepting it,” continued Alice; “for myself, at all events?” “Am not I invited?” inquired Harry, gravely. “Yes, certainly; only I did not know whether you could tear yourself away from your dearly beloved dogs and guns.” “And you were willing to have gone without me?” “I did not wish to be any tie upon you,” was Alice’s reply, though she coloured slightly, and turned away her head as she spoke. “You remember our compact; I am a great advocate for free will.” “Between husband and wife such a question ought never to arise,” rejoined Harry, seriously but kindly; “there should be complete unanimity. I hoped you had forgotten all that folly.” “I never forget unkindness,” was the cold reply; “but I see you are going to favour me with a specimen of your ‘quiet manner,’ and as I am not in the humour for a scene or a lecture, you really must excuse my leaving you;” and as she spoke she rose to quit the apartment. For a moment Harry’s eyes flashed, then a look of pain passed across his features, and, taking his wife’s hand, he led her back to the sofa on which she had been seated, saying gently, but reproachfully,-- “Why will you misunderstand me thus? You wish to accept your cousin’s invitation?” Alice bowed her head in token of assent. “Then write and tell her we shall be happy to do so; I shall be ready and willing to accompany you at whatever time you and she like to arrange together.”