“I wish I knew what was best for Eustace,” he said, after a few more moments’ thought.  “Is it doing him harm for me to be here?  I could go back to New South Wales at once, only in some ways I don’t think the old fellow could get on without me, till he is more used to it all, and in safe hands.”

I had no hesitation in answering that Eustace would be much worse off without his cousin, and that the treatment we were receiving was chiefly on account of the fathers of both, not personal to Harold.

“Then you think it would not help him for me to leave him?”

“I think he is far more likely to live it down with you to help him.”

“But, Lucy, are you being given up by all your friends for our sakes?  We did not know it meant that when we asked you to stay with us!”

“No more did I. But don’t be uneasy about that, Harold dear.  Don’t you think one’s own flesh and blood is more than all such friends?”

“I should not have thought two fellows like us could have been worth much to you,” said Harold, gravely pondering.  “That pretty little thing who was with you the night we came; she has never been here again.  Don’t you miss her?”

“It is not her fault,” I said.  “Besides, nothing is like the tie of blood.”

I shall never forget the look that was in Harold’s eyes.  I was standing over him, putting some fresh warm water on his hand.  He put back his head and looked up earnestly in my face, as if to see whether I meant it, then said, “We are very thankful to you for thinking so.”

I could not help bending and touching his forehead with my lips.  His eyes glistened and twinkled, but he said nothing for a little space, and then it was, “If any one like you had been out there—­”

I don’t think I ever had a compliment that gave me more pleasure, for there was somehow an infinite sense of meaning in whatever Harold said, however short it might be, as if his words had as much force in them as his muscles.

After a good deal more of silent sponging and some knitting of his brows, either from thought or from pain, he said, “Then, as I understand, you cast in your lot with us, and give us the blessing of your presence and care of poor little Dora, to help to set Eustace in his proper place in society.  I see then that it is your due that we should bring no one here of whom you do not fully approve.”

“It is not only a matter of approval,” I explained.  “There are many with whom I could freely associate in general society, or if I had any lady with me, whom I ought not to have constantly here with only you two.”

“England is different from the Bush,” he answered, and meditated for ten minutes more, for no doubt it was the Australian practice to offer free quarters to all comers without Mrs. Grundy, who had hardly yet had her free passage.  My heart smote me lest I were acting unkindly for her sake, but then surely I was saving my allegiance to my dead mother, and while I was still thinking it over, Harold said: