The bride and bridegroom did not return to Melbourne until the day before Christmas--Friday the 24th, which was a warm, and bright, and proper summer day, but working up for a spell of north winds and bush fires before the year ran out. They had been wandering happily amongst the lovely vales and mountains of that sequestered district of Victoria which has become vaguely known as the "Kelly Country," and finding out before they left it, to their great satisfaction, that Australia could show them scenery so variously romantic as to put the charms of the best hotels into the shade. Even that terrestrial paradise on the ferny slopes of Upper Macedon was, if not eclipsed, forgotten, in the beauty of the wilder woodland of the far Upper Murray, which was beyond the reach of railways. They had also been again to visit the old house by the sea and Mr. Brion; had dawdled along the familiar shore in twilight and moonlight; had driven to the caves and eaten lunch once more in the green dell among the bracken fronds; had visited the graves of that other pair of married lovers--that Kingscote and Elizabeth of the last generation--and made arrangements for the perpetual protection from disturbance and desecration of that sadly sacred spot. And it was only on receipt of an urgent telegram from Mrs. Duff-Scott, to remind them that Christmas was approaching, and that she had devised festivities which were to be more in honour of them than of the season, that they remembered how long they had been away, and that it had become time to return to their anxious relatives.