Explore "Up the Country: A Saga of Pioneering Days" by Miles Franklin on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
That year the gold fever at the Victorian diggings was at its height. Charlotte wrote that Philip wanted to try his luck for just a little longer, and that then perhaps they would make tracks for home. Between them, Charlotte and Mrs Mazere had not allowed Mazere Senior to realise that Philip's tardiness in accepting reinstatement was more than tardiness, so the door was still open and Philip impatiently awaited.
Nothing had been heard of Ellen's husband, and Charlotte did not recommend Ellen making the journey to the goldfields. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack, she said. In fact, Philip feared that Slattery had met with foul play. It was so easy to obliterate all trace of a man by throwing him down a deserted shaft, of which there were thousands. Charlotte begged dear Mamma and Auntie Emily to keep Philip a little longer till they sent for him or came to him.