"My intention," said Patty, firmly, with her little nose uplifted, and a high colour in her face, "is to put an end to this useless and culpable waste of time. The man I love and am _engaged to_ is working, and slaving, and waiting for me; and I, like the rest of you, am neglecting him, and sacrificing him, as if he were of no consequence whatever. _This_ shows me how I have been treating him. I will not do it any more. I did not become Miss Yelverton to repudiate all I undertook when I was only Patty King. I am Yelverton by name, but I am King by nature, still. I don't want to be a great swell. I have seen the world, and I am satisfied. Now I want to go home to Paul--as I ought to have done before. I will ask you, if you please, Kingscote, to take my passage for me at once. I shall go back next month, and I shall marry Paul Brion as soon as the steamer gets to Melbourne." Her brother-in-law put out his hand, and drew her to him, and kissed her. "Well done," he said, speaking boldly from his honest heart. "So you shall." CHAPTER L. "THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE." Patty softened down the terms in which she made her declaration of independence, when she found that it was received in so proper a spirit. She asked them if they had _any objection_--which, after telling them that it didn't matter whether they had or not, was a graceful act, tending to make things pleasant without committing anybody. But if they had objections (as of course they had) they abandoned them at this crisis. It was no use to fight against Paul Brion, so they accepted him, and made the best of him. The head of the family suddenly and forcibly realised that he should have been disappointed in his little sister-in law if she had acted otherwise; and even Mrs. Duff-Scott, who would always so much rather help than hinder a generous project, no matter how opposed to the ethics of her class, was surprised herself by the readiness with which she turned her back on faded old lords and dissipated young baronets, and gave herself up to the pleasant task of making true lovers happy. Elizabeth repented swiftly of her own disloyalty to plighted love, temporary and shadowy as it was; and, seeing how matters really stood, acquiesced in the situation with a sense of great thankfulness that her Patty was proved so incorruptible by the tests she had gone through. Mrs. Yelverton's only trouble was the fear of separation in the family, which the ratification of the engagement seemed likely to bring about.