'I guess that Lady Bridget would be better pleased if she wasn't handed over to a rough bushman.' 'Now, there you ARE quite out of it,' laughed the aide-de-camp.

'Lady Bridget asked specially to be sent in with you,' and at Mrs Gildea's enquiring smile, he explained once more: 'Sir Luke was speaking about Mr McKeith, said his name had been mentioned at a meeting of the Executive yesterday.

Oh! you're top hole, Mr McKeith, I assure you.' The AIDE broke off suddenly.
There was a rustle of silk on the grand staircase--the slam of a door above, the sound of a laugh and the patter of little high-heeled shoes on the parquet floor of the gallery.

The AIDE darted to the foot of the staircase and all eyes turned upward.
The new Governor and his wife came down in slow and stately fashion, arm-in-arm, Sir Luke looking very impressive with the Ribbon and Order of St Michael and St George.

He was a handsome man, clean-shaven but for a heavy dark moustache, and carried his dignities with perhaps a little too conscious an air--'Representative of the Throne' seemed written all over him and no greater contrast could be imagined than the new Governor presented to his predecessor, an elderly, impoverished marquis who had the brain of a diplomatist and the manners of a British farmer, and who with his homely wife had been immensely popular in Leichardt's Land.
Nor a greater contrast than the new Governor's wife to the fat, kindly, old marchioness.