and I have been doing nothing but hurl abuse at each other for the last week or so, and I'm on a canvassing expedition to the Upper Luya."
"Do you think you are going to beat Frank Hallett?" asked Elsie.
"I hope so. Yes, I think I shall beat him. If I do I suppose you will hate me?"
"I don't know why you should say that. Mr. Hallett is not my brother or—or any other relation."
"But you wish him to get in?"
"Yes—I wish him to get in."
"Because he is a friend, or because you are in sympathy with his politics?"
"Oh, his politics! I don't know anything about politics. I don't care in the least whether the squatters get their Land Bill, or whether the agriculturists get things their way. It doesn't matter."
"Don't you think it matters that the squatters monopolize a great deal of land to which they have no right, and of which poor people ought to have a share?"
"There is plenty of room in Australia," said Elsie.
"Yes, there is plenty of room, and all the more reason for legislators to see that justice is done. I mean to go against your Squatters' Land Bill, Miss Valliant. I mean to fight Mr. Hallett on all his points tooth and nail. I am fighting him now. We are enemies in open field, and you and yours are on his side of the battle."
"Oh, we are sisters of mercy—Ina and I," said Elsie, laughing. "In common charity one may bind up one's enemy's wounds."
"I think my wounds will keep till I get to Baròlin," he said, laughing, too. "They are not very serious: I will not put your and Lady Horace's loyalty to so severe a test. I am glad you call yourself a sister of mercy, and that you take up so disinterested a position—perhaps I ought rather to say so womanlike a position."
"Why womanlike?"
"You confess that it is for the sake of friendship, not
