They arrived in Melbourne by the 3.41 train from Ballarat, where they had broken a long journey the evening before, and found Patty and Eleanor and the major's servants waiting for them at Spencer Street. The meeting between the sisters, after their first separation, was silent, but intensely impressive. On the platform though they were, they held each other's hands and gazed into each other's eyes, unconscious of the attention they attracted, unable to find words to express how much they had missed each other and how glad they were to be reunited. They drove home together in a state of absolute happiness; and at home Mrs. Duff-Scott and the major were standing on their doorstep as the carriage swept up the broad drive to the house, as full of tender welcomes for the bride as any father or mother could have been, rejoicing over a recovered child. Elizabeth thought of the last Christmas Eve which she and her sisters, newly orphaned and alone in the world, poor in purse and destitute of kith and kin, spent in that humble little bark-roofed cottage on the solitary cliff; and she marvelled at the wonderful and dazzling changes that the year had brought. Only one year out of twenty-nine!--and yet it seemed to have held the whole history of her life. She was taken into the drawing-room and put into a downy chair, and fed with bread and butter and tea and choice morsels of news, while Patty knelt on the floor beside her, and her husband stood on the hearthrug watching her, with, his air of quiet but proud proprietorship, as he chatted of their travels to the major. It was very delightful. She wondered if it were really herself--Elizabeth King that used to be--whose lines had fallen on these pleasant places. While the afternoon tea was in progress, Eleanor fidgetted impatiently about the room. She was so graceful and undulating in her movements that her fidgetting was only perceived to be such by those who knew her ways; but Elizabeth marked her gentle restlessness, in spite of personal preoccupations. "Do you want me to go upstairs with you?" she inquired with her kind eyes, setting down her teacup; and Nelly almost flew to escort her out of the room. There was to be a large dinner party at Mrs. Duff-Scott's to-night, to "meet Mr. and Mrs. Yelverton on their return," all Melbourne having been made acquainted with the romance of their cousinship and marriage, and the extent of their worldly possessions, during their absence. "It is to be so large," said Patty, as her brother-in-law shut the drawing-room door upon the trio, "that even Mrs. Aarons will be included in it."