Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land

the old style, standing in a garden and built on the cliff-the Emu Point side-overlooking the broad Leichardt River. The veranda, quite twelve feet wide

uld have fetched a pretty sum in Covent Garden, and, joining in with a fine-growing asparagus fern, formed an arch over the entrance steps. The end of the veranda, where Mrs Gildea had established herself with her type-writer and paraphernalia of literary work, was screened by a thick-stemmed gra

da posts, could be seen a guava-tree, an elderly fig and a loquat all in full bearing. The garden seemed a tangle of all manner of vegetation-an oleander in bloom, a poinsettia, a yucca, lifting its spike of waxen white blossoms, a narrow flower-border in which the gardenias had become tall shrubs and the scented verbena shrubs almost tree

he whole town, business and residential, one must cross the river three times. Mrs Gildea could see the plan of the main street in the Middle Point and the roofs of shops and offices. The busy wharves of the Leichardt's Land Steam Navigation Company-familiarly

-sparkles on the river suggested a cruel glare ou

iage, had been transplanted into English soil, as care-free as a rose cut from the parent stem, and who now, after nearly

e end a tray with the remains of her breakfast of tea, scones and fruit. The end nearest her was littered with sheaves of manuscript, newspaper-cuttings, photographs and sepia sketches-obviou

w's mail, and, moreover, she had to digest the reasons of the eminent journal for returning to her an article that

roving commission to report upon the political, financial, economic and social aspects of Aust

titution of the commplace P. & O. for the more exciting Canadian Pacific, Mr Gibbs having sudden

; when Imperialism, Free Trade and Yellow Labour were the catch words of a par

ed to-day would bring her troublesome editorial instructions. She examined some of the photographs and dr

bs hates having amateur snapshots to work up .... Hopeless to try for a local artist.... I wonder if Colin McKeith could give me an idea..... Why to goodness didn't Biddy join me! .... I

another, altered the notch to single spacing and rattled off at top speed til

dy Bridge

za Countess

k Street,

h she slipped her letter-

ote to the tree's reedy whimperings, and the postman tram

ildea ... a hea

pondence sent on by the porter of Mrs Gildea's London flat, some local letters and, finally, two square envelopes, with the remark, a

stoffices, a few with the distinctive markings of British Legations and Government Houses where the Special Correspondent should hav

ive, untidy but characteristic h

ore the flap of number one letter, pau

t, she tackled the local letters. One was embossed with the Bank of Leichardt's Land stamp and contained a cablegram originally despatched from Rome, which had been received at Vancouver and, thence, had pursued her-first along the r

am was phr

NO FUNDS OTHER RE

ney with inclination goading, she felt pretty certain that Lady Bridget would have contrived to beg, borrow or steal-on a hazardous promissory note, after the happy-go-lucky financial morals of that section of society to which by birth

he first had the address of a house in South Belgravia, where lived Sir Luke Tallan

stakes corrected down the margin of the flimsy sheets in the manner of

ry style of the MS., which had