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50 thing more disagreeable would be to marry without it. It is so difficult to fall in love. I have been trying for all these years, and I haven't succeeded yet."

"Not even with Frank Hallett?"

"Not even with Frank Hallett, and yet he has everything for one to fall in love with—good looks, though I don't care for those in a man, nice manners, brains—of a sort—money—you couldn't wish for anything more satisfactory. And I think I could be happy with him."

"Elsie," said Ina with an inflexion almost of passion in her voice, "don't be a spoiled child; caring only for a thing when you can't get it—not valuing what is yours. Don't let it all have been of no use: his love for you; my—my prayers for your happiness with him."

"You are right, Ina; I've been a spoiled child. Mammie has spoiled me, you have spoiled me, though I'm older than you, my poor Ina; and it is I who ought to have spoiled you. It's that which makes me the heartless freakish thing that I am. And yet—and yet there's always the feeling that the Prince might come."

"The Prince? Do you mean the Prince that is coming this winter? And what use will that be to you? You don't think you can marry him?" Ina alluded to the visit of a certain sprig of royalty, which was expected to take place that year. "You don't think you are like Beatrix Esmond, do you?"

"Yes, I do think I am very like Beatrix Esmond. As for my Prince—well, I should be pleased if he wore a periwig and Court ruffles and carried a sword like Colonel Henry Esmond, but that is out of the question, I suppose, in this nineteenth century Australia, and there are not many Colonel Esmonds in history—or out of it."

"I think Frank Hallett would do quite as fine things as Colonel Henry Esmond."

"Perhaps. But do you know, between ourselves, I always thought Colonel Esmond was ever such a little bit of a prig. Ina, I have told Frank Hallett that if the Prince does not come along within a year's time I will marry him."