Colin'-- hesitatingly, 'I did think you'd have come and looked after an old friend at the big Show in the Botanical Gardens when the Governor made his State Entry.' 'State Entry! Good Lord! Sir Luke Tallant has got a bit too much red tape and too many airs about him to suit the Leichardt'stonians.' 'You WERE there, then ?' 'Started for Alexandra City that afternoon.' 'But you saw--Colin did you see--the Tallants and--their party?
His face changed: it looked positively angry, and his jaw under the neatly trimmed, sandy beard, protruded determinedly.

But at that moment a footman came towards them, and Mrs Gildea was handed on to an imposing butler and ushered through a wide palm-screened doorway into the large inner hall which had a gallery round it and the big staircase at one end.

Joan saw that the room, formerly stiffly furnished and used chiefly as a ballroom, had been transmogrified with comfortable lounge chairs and sofas, beautiful embroideries, screens, a spinet and many flowers and books into a delightful general sitting-room.

It seemed quite full--mostly of official Leichardt'stonians.

Joan looked for the new Governor and his wife, or at least for Lady Biddy, but none of them had yet put in an appearance.