One day when the boy had been talking with enthusiasm of Australian life, and expressing his longing after more adventures, his uncle, who also was eager for change, proposed to Edgar an overland journey together to Adelaide.  He had heard that some particularly fine sheep were to be had in South Australia, and he wished to add this variety to his own flocks as well as to those of Mr. Phillips.  He had always had a great wish to see the Adelaide side, and this journey would amuse and employ him till he could get his answer from Elsie.  If she accepted him, and came out, as he wished, without delay, he might never have another opportunity for making the visit, for he would not be inclined to leave her, for a while at any rate.

Edgar was delighted with the proposal, and helped his uncle with the few simple preparations for their long ride with a vigour and despatch that showed he had the stuff in him for a good bushman.  How his tender mother would have trembled at the thought of the perils and hardships of such a journey but as she knew nothing about it till it was safely over, she was spared all anxiety.  Brandon was not altogether insincere when he told Elsie and the Edinburgh ladies that the finest prospect he ever saw in Victoria was the prospect of getting out of it, but the present pleasure made him forget many past ones.  He had a real enjoyment in the bush life he then talked so contemptuously about.  Camping out was to him no hardship, and to Edgar it was a delightful novelty.  It was varied by nights spent at sheep stations, where a hospitable welcome generally awaited them, and an amount of comfort varying according to circumstances.  When they crossed the Victorian border, and came to the South Australian side, the welcome appeared to be equally hearty.  Edgar Holmes could not help admiring the want of suspicion and the liberality of these absolute strangers.

Brandon went about his purchase of sheep on his way to Adelaide, and made what he thought a very satisfactory bargain.  It was to be a joint speculation between himself and Mr. Phillips, and he was sure it would turn out very well.  When he had left directions as to delivery, he and his nephew went down to Adelaide, to see what they thought of that little colonial capital.  Edgar was charmed with Adelaide, and preferred it out-and-out to Melbourne, but as he had only passed through the latter, and had got acquainted with none of the people there, his preference was perhaps not worth much.  Brandon, however, could not help confessing that the Adelaide men had some cause for the patriotism so strongly, and, as he had thought, so tiresomely expressed at the time of the diggings.  It had less bustle than Melbourne, and certainly was not so wealthy; but it was a quiet, cheap, and hospitable place, and its prosperity rested on a very solid basis.  The amount of cultivation, both agricultural and horticultural, contrasted favourably with that of Melbourne, which had been almost exclusively pastoral till the gold diggings broke out, and had had many drawbacks, in the shape of land regulations, to its becoming a corn and wine bearing country.