A gold mine with fifty or sixty thousand pounds worth of plant about it, Aunt Polly, is an imperious mistress.' In all this our hero was calumniating himself.

Polyeuka and the plant he was willing to abandon on very moderate terms, and had arranged to wipe his hands of the whole concern if those moderate terms were accepted.
But cousin Julia and aunt Polly were enemies against whom it was necessary to assume whatever weapons might come to his hand.
He had arranged to stay a week at Babington.

He had considered it all very deeply, and had felt that as two days was the least fraction of time which he could with propriety devote to the Shands, so must he give at least a week to Babington.

There was, therefore, no necessity for any immediate violence on the part of the ladies.

The whole week might probably have been allowed to pass without absolute violence, had he not shown by various ways that he did not intend to make many visits to the old haunts of his childhood before his return to Australia.