Page:Alice Lauder.pdf/68

“But there was a great surprise in store for me. One day I woke up from a long healing draught of sleep, and found my poor old aunt half sobbing, half laughing, over the letter which had just come from Australia. Her other brother, my uncle Richard, whom I had never seen, was dead, and we were half expecting to hear of some little legacy from him. He had gone far away into the ‘Back Blocks’ years before, and had toiled and struggled and fought with dry summers and bad seasons, bush fires and low prices, and all the trials of a pioneer's business, until just as he was beginning to make the place pay he was carried off by a sudden illness. It turned out that he left me all his property, a third share of Blue Hills station, and the money value of this share came to a sum which made me shut my eyes and open them again wildly two or three times in succession, just to make sure I was not enduring the tyrannical caprice of a dream. Even now I can hardly realize that I may indulge in unlimited gloves, and music, and subscriptions to all Aunt Selina’s pet charities, and I often feel I must apologize to some one for taking a hansom when it is raining, or for buying a novel, or a bonnet, and then throwing them away as soon as I get tired of either. If only my poor old father could have lived to