WHITE HEATHENS Captain Brentwood went back to Garoopna next morning; but Frank Maberly kept to his resolution of going over to see Mary; and, soon after breakfast, they were all equipped ready to accompany him, standing in front of the door, waiting for the horses.

Frank was remarking how handsome Mrs.Buckley looked in her hat and habit, when she turned and said to him,-- "My dear Dean, I suppose you never jump over five-barred gates now-a-days?
Do you remember how you used to come over the white gate at the Vicarage?
I suppose you are getting too dignified for any such thing ?" There was a three-railed fence dividing the lower end of the yard from the paddock.

He rammed his hat on tight, and took it flying, with his black coattails fluttering like wings; and, coming back laughing, said,-- "There's a bit of the old Adam for you, Mrs.Buckley! Be careful how you defy me again." The sun was bright overhead, and the land in its full winter verdure, as they rode along the banks of the creek that led to Toonarbin.

Frank Maberly was as humorous as ever, and many a merry laugh went ringing through the woodland solitudes, sending the watchman cockatoo screaming aloft to alarm the flock, or startling the brilliant thick-clustered lories (richest coloured of all parrots in the world), as they hung chattering on some silver-leaved acacia, bending with their weight the fragile boughs down towards the clear still water, lighting up the dark pool with strange, bright reflections of crimson and blue; startling, too, the feeding doe-kangaroo, who skipped slowly away, followed by her young one--so slowly that the watching travellers expected her to stop each moment, and could scarcely believe she was in full flight till she topped a low ridge and disappeared.
"That is a strange sight to a European, Mrs.Buckley," said Frank; "a real wild animal.

It seems so strange to me, now, to think that I could go and shoot that beast, and account to no man for it.