Lance gazed with astonishment at the novel and picturesque landscape. 'Am I in North Wales again?' he could not help asking himself. 'Who would have thought to have seen such a river? Such richly green meadowlands? Such a stupendous glen? And oh!' he thought, as he passed round a cape of volcanic trap-rock which impinged upon the smooth upland, 'what magic and enchantment is this?' Yes, truly, as a loftier line of summit of the great Alpine mountain chain which bisects the continent came into view. So sudden was the surprise, so strangely contrasted with all his preconceived ideas of Australian scenery was the presentment of the wondrous white battlements upreared against a cloudless azure sky, that he was constrained to rein in his horse and gaze, silent and spellbound, at the supernal splendour of the apparition. 'If Estelle were by my side! If she could but behold this entrancing prospect,' he thought. 'She, whom the view of a far blue range of hills, of a peaceful lakelet, would send into ecstasies of admiration! How often had they stood together in the fading summer eve and gazed at the wide and wondrous landscape, as they then deemed it, which extended for some twenty or thirty miles around Wychwood.' Here, with a new world unfolding to his gaze, what crowds of ideas and half-formed projects coursed through the adventurous brain of the gazer. Born of the class and moulded of the race which had produced the immortal voyagers, the unconquered warriors, the dauntless adventurers of Elizabeth's reign, Lance Trevanion needed but the stimulus of his present surroundings to be inspired with lofty and enterprising ideas. His original intention of returning home and settling down to the monotonous and luxurious stagnation of an English country gentleman's life became hateful to him. Far rather, if Estelle would join him here, would he invest in these half-tamed Australian wilds, acquire a principality along with the colossal herds and countless flocks of the typical squatter, which magnates he had seen and heard tell of. Eventually, he would embark with a capital sufficient to buy up half the Duchy, to restore the House of Trevanion to its ancient grandeur, and go down to posterity as _the_ Trevanion, the latter-day champion of the race, who had redeemed the once regal name from the mediocrity which had oppressed and disfigured it. But these momentous plans and enterprises could by no means be carried out without the companionship and solace of 'one sweet spirit to be his minister,' and in that hour of exultation and unfaltering confidence there came to him, like the strain of distant music, the low, sweet tones--the gentle chidings of his queenly Estelle. _She_ would, unless he misjudged her, follow him to the ends of the earth. Why, then, should he wait to linger here amid rude surroundings--even ruder society? His business could be quite as well managed in his absence by the faithful Jack Polwarth. How suddenly the