"Miss Tilly's sister, no doubt ?" "No, no--not her.

Jinn's all right, but she's not your sort.

But they've got a girl living with 'em--a sort o' poor relation, or something--and she's a horse of quite another colour .-- I say, old man, serious now, have you never thought o' gettin' spliced ?" Again Mahony laughed.

At his companion's words there descended to him, once more, from some shadowy distance, some pure height, the rose-tinted vision of the wife-to-be which haunts every man's youth.
And, in ludicrous juxtaposition, he saw the women, the only women he had encountered since coming to the colony: the hardworking, careworn wives of diggers; the harridans, sluts and prostitutes who made up the balance.
He declined to be drawn.

"Is it old Moll Flannigan or one of her darlints you'd be wishing me luck to, ye spalpeen ?" "Man, don't I say I've FOUND the wife for you ?" Purdy was not jesting, and did not join in the fresh salvo of laughter with which Mahony greeted his words.