'And after that?' queried Hastings, almost unconsciously. For he could not help pitying from his heart this high-souled maiden, so utterly alien in every thought and feeling to the people by whom she must of necessity be surrounded. He saw her quitting the comparative security of even this humble retreat for a doubtful, even dangerous, succession of journeys in quest of what--of whom? An outlaw and a felon! Guilty by his country's laws, and self-convicted now by his breach of prison regulations. Doubtless he had received hard measure and unjust sentence, but had he been true to himself and the traditions of his race, he needed never to have placed himself in peril of the law. 'However,' he continued in mental converse, 'she will never be persuaded--woman like--that he has descended from her ideal. She must "dree her weird," as our Scottish friends say.' So for the next few days Estelle amused herself by studying the ordinary miner's life, partly in company with Mr. Stirling, who generally found her quietly seated in Mrs. Polwarth's cottage in the afternoon after bank hours, and partly from information derived from that worthy dame, who was far from averse to diffusing her information. 'I don't see but what it's as good a country as the one we've left, Miss,' said the shrewd matron; 'anyhow it's better for the likes of Jack and me. There's a deal of rough ways and drinking, it's true, but no one's bound to take part in it if they don't like. Jack, he's steady and sober,--I'm thankful to the Lord for it,--and we're putting by more cash every washing-up than we ever heard talk of in the Duchy. When Tottie's a year or two older we'll send her to school in Melbourne. There's good schools there, I'm told. There's no reason why she shouldn't have the learning as we never had. We'll make a lady of her, please God.' 'I see no objection, Mrs. Polwarth, to her having the best education possible,' replied Estelle thoughtfully. 'At home we are apt to disapprove of children being educated above their station, as it is called. But in a new country every one has a chance to rise in life, if they prove worthy of it, and there is no reason why my pretty little Tottie shouldn't be as much a lady, in mind and manners, as any one else.' 'Do you really think so, Miss?' asked Mrs. Polwarth, anxiously. 'I've known girls that were spoiled in the old country by being sent to boarding-schools, and come back neither one thing nor the other. Spoiled for farm lasses, and not quite up to being ladies, in spite of their fal-lals and piano music. I'd break my heart if Tottie came to be like that.' 'I think you may put as much learning into this pretty little head as it will hold,' said Estelle, stroking the child's clustering ringlets. 'You'll always be a good girl, won't you, Tottie?'