I had scarcely said how good it was in Dermot, when he sauntered in.  “There you are, Vi; I’m come to your rescue, you know,” he said, in his lazy way, and disposed himself on the bear-skin as we sat on the sofa.  I tried again to utter a protest.  “Oh Dermot, it was all your doing.”

“That’s rather too bad.  As if I could control your domestic lion-tamer.”

“You abetted him.  You could have prevented him.”

“Such being your wish.”

“I am thinking of your mother.”

“Eh, Viola, is the meeting worth the reckoning?”

“You should not teach her your own bad ways,” said I, resisting her embrace.

“Come, we had better be off, Dermot,” she said, pouting; “we did not come here to be scolded.”

“I thought you did not come of your own free will at all,” I said, and then I found I had hurt her, and I had to explain that it was the disobedience that troubled me; whereupon they both argued seriously that people were not bound to submit to a cruel and unreasonable prejudice, which had set the country in arms against us.  “Monstrous,” Dermot said, “that two fellows should suffer for their fathers’ sins, and such fellows, and you too for not being unnatural to your own flesh and blood.”

“But that does not make it right for Viola to disobey her mother.”

“And how is it to be, Lucy?” asked Viola.  “Are we always to go on in this dreadful way?”

By this time Eustace could no longer be withheld from paying his respects to the lady guest, and Harold and Dora came with him, bringing the kangaroo, for which Viola had entreated; and she also made him fetch the lion-skin, which had been dressed and lined and made into a beautiful carriage-rug; and to Dora she owed the exhibition of the great scar across Harold’s left palm, which, though now no inconvenience, he would carry through life.  It was but for a moment, for as soon as he perceived that Dora meant anything more than her usual play with his fingers, he coloured and thrust his hand into his pocket.

We all walked through the grounds with Viola, and when we parted she hung about my neck and assured me that now she had seen me she should not grieve half so much, and, let mamma say what she would, she could not be sorry; and I had no time to fight over the battle of the sorrow being for wrongdoing, not for reproof, for the pony would bear no more last words.

Eustace had behaved all along with much politeness; in fact, he was always seen to most advantage with strangers, for his manners had some training, and a little constraint was good for him by repressing some of his sayings.  His first remark, when the brother and sister were out of hearing, was, “A very sweet, lively young lady.  I never saw her surpassed in Sydney!”

“I should think not,” said Harold.

“Well, you know I have been presented and have been to a ball at Government House.  There’s an air, a tournure about her, such as uncle Smith says belongs to the real aristocracy; and you saw she was quite at her ease with me.  We understand each other in the higher orders.  Don’t be afraid, Lucy, we shall yet bring back your friend to you.”