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how Alice could have lent herself to this escapade, and whatever Arthur and Mildred may say, she must have hated this dramatic appearance in the middle of Lady Langton’s party, and the exposure of herself as someone who had offended against the conventions. She always had a strong sense of decorum, though she was also very romantic. She had been taught French and some Italian by her aunt, and she was steeped in poetry and picturesque legend. It is possible that she found in stories like
Isabella and the pot of basil
, and in
Romeo and Juliet
, precedents which put her adventure not below but above the conventions of early Colonial society.
    Another consideration is that I myself only saw Alice with the eyes of a child, and that was when she was old and stood for all that was impeccably dignified. I have only heardof her early days from people like Arthur, who idealised her. It is possible that when she was young she enjoyed the follies of youth, and enjoyed giving society a slap in the face. After all, under those crinolines, the bodies were the same as under a pair of flannel trousers and a polo sweater. We know little of her father except that he must have had an adventurous spirit and plenty of courage, but Alice also had in her veins the blood of her mother, who at that time was kicking over the traces in Sydney.
    Shortly after his marriage Austin was prosecuted for abducting a ward in chancery, or something of that kind. The court was filled with the people who had been at the dinner at Bishopscourt and their intimate friends. Sir William was on the bench, so that it was more like a family party than a legal proceeding. When Austin stood up to make some statement his father said impatiently: ‘Sit down, Austin.’ Everybody laughed. It was impossible that in this atmosphere anything unpleasant should happen, and Austin, in the carriage of the judge who had tried him, drove home to enjoy his wife and her wealth.
    It was more difficult to appease Miss Verso than the Langtons or the law. She felt that Alice and the name of Verso had been treated with disrespect. She would have been very pleased with the match if it had been normally arranged. Austin was a fine-looking young man, and as the eldest son of the Chief Justice was as eligible as any other in Melbourne. But the implication of the elopement was that the marriage was one of which his family would disapprove, and being sensitive on the subject of Alice’s mother and stepfather, she attributed their imagined disapproval to this undesirableassociation. Even when the Langtons welcomed Alice with the greatest affection, she did not become reconciled to the marriage. She did not see that Sir William’s only reason for disapproving was that he did not want his son, who already showed too great a love of pleasure, to have his gingerbread so soon and so heavily gilded. It was some months before Miss Verso would see Alice and Austin, except on necessary business. A year later, she returned to England. She refused the allowance offered her by Alice, and lived economically on her own small income, and after two winters she died. My father used to say that it was only the strong streak of conscience we inherited from the Versos that kept us all out of the jails and the lunatic asylums, so it seems that Alice brought us not only money, but enough character to enjoy it without too great a deterioration. My father of course may only have said this to give some credit to his mother’s rather broken and tarnished family, which Hetty never ceased to describe as one of drunkards and gamblers.
    Austin had conversations with Sir William about his future. He said that he wanted to breed horses and when any comment was made on his idleness, he went off to inspect a site for a stud farm, but he always came back and said that it was unsuitable. He had originally wanted a stud farm so that he could have good horses, as a child might say: ‘When I grow up I’m going to have a sweet