'Tottie's mother's good girl,' said the small damsel, dimly conscious that she was under discussion, and then reading the tenderness aright in her visitor's face--that visitor so munificent in sugar plums and dolls--'and Miss Chaloner's good girl too.' 'I really believe you will, Tottie dear,' she said, lifting up the child and kissing her. 'May God bless all this prosperity to her, and to you and John also. Some people deserve their good fortune, and I am sure you both do.' * * * * * The days passed on--the final Saturday came, and still no course had shaped itself in the minds of her 'friends in council.' Tessie Lawless certainly might have furnished information, but no one knew her address. They were not even sure whether she would feel justified in disclosing Lance's retreat. Stirling was still in much doubt--more than he cared to show--with regard to Miss Chaloner setting forth on a hopeless quest, when the daily mail arrived from Ballarat. Glancing through his letters, he stopped suddenly, arrested by the handwriting of an unopened letter. 'Lance Trevanion, by heaven!' he exclaimed, half aloud; 'just in time, too.' He tore it open. The fateful scroll commenced thus-- 'OMEO, _10th June 185--_. 'Here I am, my dear Charlie, so far restored to my old feelings that I can put pen to paper again, at the very idea of which I have shuddered till now. But the fresh mountain air--we had snow for breakfast this morning--has made a man of me again; that is, as much of a man as I ever shall be till I quit Australia for good. 'After I left my _last place_, I made tracks for this digging. The most out-of-the-way, rough, rowdy hole among the mountains that ever gold was found in. It's a hard place to get to, harder still to get safely out of, populated, as it is, by all the scum of the colonies, and the rascaldom of half the world. Very different from Ballarat or poor old Growlers', though I have no reason to say so. 'How about the gold? you will say. _There is no mistake about that._ I have no mates. I am a "hatter," and have worked on my own hook--partly for occupation and partly for a blind. I have just made up my mind to prospect a reef which has been discovered near Mount Gibbo by a stock-rider called Caleb Coke. He is an ex-convict, "an old-hand," as they say here, and there are queer stories told about him, as indeed about most of the people in Omeo; but if the reef is rich--and they say nothing like it has been struck yet--I intend to have a shot at it.