"Well," he said, and paused; "I hunted you away from Melbourne, to make your boy into a strong fellow.  And you’ve done it.  I don’t want to make rash promises or raise false hopes.  But Garth has improved so wonderfully that I cannot see that there is any real reason for you to bury yourselves down here for ever.  If you gave him, say, another year of Gippsland, I think you might with perfect safety take him back to Melbourne. You’d have to watch him, of course.  But, with an occasional holiday in the country, he would get on quite well."