By bedtime I was wondering if we could possibly spend the enormous fortune which would be quite certain to accrue to us in a few years if only we could make up our minds to invest the modest balance at our bankers in this tempting bargain.

I remember well that I found myself wishing we were not going to be _quite_ so rich; half our promised income would have been ample, I thought.

My anxieties on that score turned out to have been, to say the least, premature.
Not to make my story too long, I may briefly say that after making due allowance for the natural exaggeration of the owner, the run on Lake Wanaka's shores seemed certainly to offer many attractions.

Besides thousands of acres of beautiful sheltered sheep country, it was said to possess a magnificent bush, in which sawyers were already hard at work.
Of course all this timber would become our own, and we were to make so much a year by selling it.

"How about the carriage ?" inquired F---- cautiously, having visions of costly bullock-drays, and teams and drivers at fabulous wages.