“From Melbourne, that's no distance. I've travelled more than twice as far since morning, my dear, and I shall have it to travel all over again before to-morrow morning.” “Then you haven't come from Melbourne?” cried Arabella, highly amazed. “Haven't set foot in it since I saw you last.” “Where in the world have you been, then, Missy?” But even as they were speaking, the grass whispered on every hand, the leaves rustled, and down came the rain in torrents. Arabella found herself taken by the arm and led into the shelter of the nearest tree—a spreading she-oak. She was much agitated. “Oh, what am I to do?” she cried. “I dare not stay many minutes; but I would give anything to stay ever so long, Missy! You don't understand. Tell me quickly where you have been, if you never went back to Melbourne?” “Nay, if you're in a hurry, it's you that must tell me things. That's what I've come all this way for, 'Bella—just to hear how you're all getting on. How's Mr. Teesdale?” “He's as well as he ever is.” “And you, 'Bella?” “Oh, there's never anything the matter with me.” “And John William?” “There's not much the matter with him, either.” “Then that's all right,” Missy fetched a sigh of relief. It struck Arabella as very odd indeed that the only one of them after whom Missy did not ask should be Mrs. Teesdale. But was it odd? Quite apart from any rights or wrongs, Mrs. Teesdale had been Missy's natural enemy from the first. Moreover, she had struck Missy as an old woman who would never grow older or die; and Arabella let it pass. She was in a hurry, and it was now her turn to get answers from Missy. “Where have you been,” she repeated, “if you never went back to Melbourne? Be quick and tell me all about it.” Missy shook her head, shaking the rain that had gathered upon her shabby bonnet into Arabella's eyes. It was raining very heavily all this time, and the she-oak's shelter left much to be desired. But Missy was now the one with her arms about the other, who was, as we know, a much shorter woman; so that Arabella, whose back was to the tree-trunk, was being kept wonderfully dry. Missy shook her head. “I can't tell you much if I'm to tell you quickly. You are in a hurry, I can see, and indeed it's no wonder——-” “Oh, you don't understand, Missy!” cried the other in a torment. “If only you would come into the house——” “That I never can.” “I tell you that you don't understand. You could—just now.”