I'll take four horses in the big waggonette; I expect she'll be waiting at Donohoe's--that is, if she left the railway-station in the coach--if she is at Donohoe's I'll be back before dark." With this he went back to the office, and his mother and Miss Harriott went their separate ways to prepare for the comfort of the heiress.
To Ellen Harriott the arrival was a new excitement, a change in the monotony of bush life; but to the old lady and Hugh it meant a great deal more.

It meant that they would be no longer master and mistress of the big station on which they had lived so long, and which was now so much under their control that it seemed almost like their own.
Everything depended on what the girl was like.

They had never even seen a photograph of her, and awaited her coming in a state of nervous expectancy.

All over the district they had been practically considered owners of the big station; Hugh had taken on and dismissed employees at his will, had controlled the buying and selling of thousands of sheep and cattle, and now this strange girl was to come in with absolute power over them.

They would be servants and dependants on the station, which had once belonged to them.
After Hugh had gone, the old lady sat back in her armchair and read over again her letter from Mr.Grant; and, lest it should be thought that that gentleman had only one side to his character, it is as well for the reader to know what was in the letter.