 CHAPTER XIII. The following day was eventful. To begin with, after Andrew had discharged his early morning duties, he was to appear before his grandma for the execution of the sentence she had passed upon him the night before. I was assisting him to dry the parts of the cream separator, a task which had become chronic with me, when Carrie shouted from the kitchen, where she was putting in her week. Her grandma says not to be long, she's waiting for you. Andrew unburdened, his soul to me. Lord, ain't I just in for it? I'll hear how me grandma read me since I was born. I'm dead sick of this born and read business. It would give up like the pip. I didn't make myself born, nor want anyone else to do it. There ain't much in being alive. She said, with that pessimism, which, like measles and hooping cough, is indigenous to extreme youth. How could I help being rad? I didn't ask him to rare me. I didn't make myself a little baby that couldn't help itself, and they didn't have read me unless they liked. Goodness knows, I'd have rather dived like a little pup before his eyes were opened. He continued so tragically that I took the opportunity of smiling behind his back, as he threw out the dish-water. Hurry up, your granny is waiting, called Carrie once more. Blow you, you'll have to wait till I'm done, retorted the boy in a tone the reverse of genial. People has always chuckered at their kids how much they owe them, I'm bloat if ever I can see it, I didn't want them to have me, and don't see why it should be ever lost and through at me. It is a wise provision that youth cannot see what it owes the previous generation. This is a chicken that comes back to roost in heavier years. I wish I had a grandma like Jack Brazmer. He nicked over to me when I was after the cows, and Mrs. Brae ain't going to kick up any row about the oranges. She says she never knew of a boy that didn't go into orchards in their young days, and that his dad did, and people don't think no more of a boy picking up a little fruit than they do of picking up a stick. Your grandma will turn the hide off of me. She'd done it once before, and I was stiff for a week. Take a tip from me, Andrew, march into your grandma bravely. She's the best woman I've seen. Walk to be proud to have such a grandma. She's in the right, and Mrs. Brae's in the wrong. Let her hammer you for all she's worth, and every whack you get feel proud that she's able to give it at her time of life, and I bet when you're a man you'll be telling everyone that you had a grandma who was worth owning. When she leaves off, tell her that this is the last time she'll ever have to do it for anything like that, and see if you don't feel more a man than you ever did before. Promise me that's what you'll do. Is that what you'd do if you was me? He inquired with surprise. That's what you'd do if you were me, I replied with a smile. Just try that. Never mind if your grandma does go for you hot and strong. Andrew wiped the table, rung out his dishcloth in the backhanded manner peculiar to his sex, hung it on a nail behind the door, dried his hands on his trousers, which for once were not busted up, and with a less rueful expression than he had exhibited for several hours went forth to meet his grandma. About ten minutes later he returned to blubbering, but it was a sunshiny shower, and I did not despise the lad for his tears, for he had a soft nature, and was quite a child despite his big stature and sixteen years. Well, I inquired, recognising that he was anxious to relate his experience. She banged away with a strap of the breeching till she was winded, and then I said, I hope she never had to beat me again for acting the goat in other people's gardens that didn't concern me, and she didn't beat me no more then, but I had plenty as it was. He said, rubbing his seat and the calves of his legs. Well done! Stick to that, and be thankful for such a grandma. Again a bad old sort when you come to consider, he said, with that patronage also an attribute of extreme youth, or unsubdued snobbishness, and when compared snobbishness and youth have some similar characteristics. Next item on the programme was Mr. Pornch, whom Grandma invited to remain to a midday dinner, and the old lady being sufficiently human to denounce as well far more fiercely behind his back than to his face, in consideration of this one's presence, once more entrusted us to sugar our own puddings, regardless of consequences. After luncheon she interviewed him about his niece's health. Mr. Pornch seemed really concerned, and said, perhaps she needed to be diverted, and that he would see about a further change, which might prove beneficial. He then put up his eyeglass to inspect Dorn's beauty, and ogling her, attempted to engage her in conversation. But the girl didn't seem at all attracted by him, all thankful for the favours he brought her in the form of an exquisite box of bonbons and the latest song. I don't accept presents, thank you, she said uncompromisingly. Do you never make exceptions? Only from people I like very much. Well, I trust I may someday be among the exceptions, he said, in a gruesome attempt to be ingratiating. But the girl replied, then you hope for impossibilities. Mr. Pornch persevered by asking if she ever went to Sydney, and stated the pleasure it would be to him to provide her with tickets for any of the plays. But even this could not overcome her unconquerable horror of the various intemperances suggested by his person, so he had to retreat. Dorn's grandmother remonstrated with her afterwards. You ought to be a little more gentler, Dorn, and you could refuse presents just as well. But if he isn't the takenest old chap, that is not any reason for you to be ungentile. Well, I don't care, replied Dorn, whose exquisitely moulded chin, despite an irresistible dimple, was expressive of determination. If I was a great old podge, and had a blue nose from swilling and gorging, and was fifty if I was a day, and then went goggling after a young fellow of eighteen, he wouldn't be very civil to me, or be lectured if he spoke to me the way I deserved, and I think these old creatures of men ought to be discouraged by all girls. What sauce for the goose is the same for the dander? Mr. Pornch had not long departed when Mrs. Bray favoured us with the call, so Grandma was spared a pilgrimage to her house. She and Carrie exchanged justifly formal greeting, but the visitor beamed upon the remainder of us, and seated herself in our midst. Oh, I say, ain't it a blessed nark to the men, us going to have a vote? He-he-ha-ha! It fairly maddens them to see us getting a bit of freedom, makes them that wild they don't know how to be sneerin' and nasty enough. Every one of us will just roll up and use our power now we've got it. They've kept our necks under the heel long enough. I wasn't thinkin' of the vote at present, said Grandma Clay. I was just off to see you about what our noble nips have been doin' in that old galling's orchard, but I beat Andrew already in case. What did you think of them? Mrs. Bray put back her handsome head, decorated by an extremely fashionable hat, and laughed boisterously. Fancy the old toad runnin' them down, gave him a bit of a scare, didn't it? Old mongrel, to kick up a fuss over a few poultry oranges, as if we don't all know what boys is. Why, there'd be no chance of rarin' them without touchin' nothin' unless you carter them off to the back-blocks, where there wasn't no one within reach. I told him what I thought of him. How dare you, says I, bring witnesses of this, said I. Grandma Clay arose. Well, if that's your idea of rarin' a family, it ain't mine. Why, can't you hear the Parsons everlasting preachin' and givin' examples of how takin' a pin has been the start of a feller comin' to the gallows? And this is a much worse beginnin' than a pin. If the only way of rarin' them not to steal was to put them where there was no possibility of stealin' nothin', a pretty sort of honesty that would be. You might as well say the only way to rarer a girl modest was to let her never have a chance of being nothin' else. Some people, of course, has different views, but I believe in holding to mine. They've brought me up to this time very well. Oh, you are terribly strict. You wouldn't have no peace of mind in your life rarin' boys if you cut things so fine as that. Now when women gets the rule it might become the fashion for men to be more proper. Look here! The men are that mad! Uncle Jake here interrupted her by appearing for four o'clock tea. Well, Mr. Sorrell, now the women has come to show you how to do things. There might be something done in the country. "'Nice fills, though, Micah, themselves,' he sneeringly replied. "'They couldn't make no greater fills of themselves than the men has always done. Lion in the gutter and breakin' their faces,' said Mrs. Bray. "'Ate till the women go at it. They'll fight like cats,' continued Uncle Jake, whose power to annoy depended not so much upon what he said, as his way of saying it.' Dawn shipped into the rescue at this point. "'I'm dead sick of that young about women fighting. It's a mean lie. They never fight half as much as men, and girls always love each other more, and are more friendly together than men. It's only women who fight with their own sex and call them cats are a few nasty things who are trying to please men by helping them to keep women down and make little of them. And the fools, that sort of meanness, never pleases any men, only those that are not worth pleasing.' "'Well, now that women has the vote, they ought to plow and drive the trains and let the men sit down inside,' continued Jake. But Mrs. Bray descended upon him. "'Yes, and the men ought to come inside and sweep and sow and have their health ruined for a man's selfishness, and be tied to a baby and four or five toddlers from six in the morning till ten at night, day in and day out, like the women do. "'What do you think, Mr. Ewett?' she inquired of this individual, who had joined the company and awaited the conclusion of her remarks ere he greeted us. "'I think the women ought to vote if they want to. There's nothing to stop them voting and doing their housework as well, and the Lord knows it doesn't matter who they vote for, as all the members are only a pack of skites, after a good billet for themselves. Think I'll have a go for it, to see if it would pay better than Farman,' he said, with his mouth extended in a laugh that redeemed the weakness of this feature, by exhibiting the beauty of a perfect set of teeth. "'What about women having to keep themselves in subjection?' persisted Uncle Jake. This subject apparently lay near his heart. "'I always think that means for them to take care of themselves and not bust over the hard-dragging work that men were meant for,' said Mrs. Bray. "'For I have always noticed that any man who puts his wife to man's work never comes to know good in the finish. If a man can't float his own boat, and thinks a woman can keep his and her own end up at the same time, she might as well fold her hands from the start, as the little she can do will never keep things going and only pave the way for Drs. Bills.' He might try to argue it, but if he believed the Bible you can see there in every page that women ain't meant only to be under men,' said the gallant Jake. "'It ain't a case of not believing in the Bible. It's only that we ain't fills enough to believe all the way as people twist it to suit their selves. Men is talks that way as always the thought would be in a benevolent asylum only for some woman keeping them from it,' said Grandma, coming to the rescue. Cowards always drag in the Bible to back themselves up far more than proper people does. And there's always one thing that strikes me in the Bible, and that is, when God was going to send his son down in human form, he considered a woman fit to be his mother, but there wasn't a man livin' fit to be his father. I reckon that's a slap in the face from the Almighty Himself that ought to make men more careful when they try to make little of women. Even Uncle Jake collapsed before this, and Mrs. Bray ceased contention and veered her talk to gossip. Young Walker has been chosen by the opposition league in Nanune, and we're going to form a committee at once and work for him. Ada Grovner is going to form a society for educating women how to vote. Ada Grovner, exclaimed Grandma, I thought she would be too much of a upholder of the men to be the start of anything like that. I don't see how educating one's self how to vote would be making them a putter down of the men, said Dawn. Well, it's much the same thing, said Mrs. Bray, for if a woman educates herself on anything it will show her that a lot of men want puttin' down, a long way down too. You'll see the men will think it's against them, and try to squash her and her society, for they're always frightened if you begin to learn the least thing you will find out how you're being imposed upon. But they don't care how much you learn in the direction of wearing yourself out and slavin' to save money for them to spend on themselves. Oh, come now, laughed Dora, they're not all so bad as that. Not your time of life when you're after the girls and pretending your angels to catch them, it's after you've got them in your power that things change, said Mrs. Bray. The company was now further enlarged by the arrival of Ernest, soon followed by a young lady I had not previously met, a tall, brown-eyed girl with pleasant determination in every line of her well-cut face, and who proved to be the young lady under discussion, Miss Ada Groverner, daughter of the owner of the farm, are joining Bray's and Clay's. Her errand was to invite Dawn to join the society she was promoting. She explained it was not for the support of a party, but for the exchange and search of knowledge that should direct electricers to exercise their long-withheld right in a worthy manner. I listened with pleasure to the thoughtful and Ernest ideals to be discerned underlying the girl's practically expressed ideas, and delighted in the humorous intelligence flushing from her clear eyes, and was altogether favourably impressed with her as a type of womanhood, one of the best extant. She conversed with the older members of the party and Ernest, and this left Dora Eward in charge of Carrie and Dawn. His giggle was much in evidence. Between blasts of it he could be heard inviting the girls to pull on the river, and they presently set off round the corner of mis-flipped bedroom, leading to the flights of wooden steps down to the boats under the naked willows. The nature of the one-swift glance that travelled after them from Ernest's eyes did not escape my observation, so I suggested that he, Miss Grogner, and myself should follow a good example, and we did. I knew it would be a relief to him to overtake Eward, pull past him with ease, and leave him a speck in the distance, as he did. I felt a satisfaction in noting Dawn watch his splendid strokes, and Miss Grogner's animated conversation with him, an enthusiastically expressed admiration of his rowing. She was not so exacting in the matter of detail as Dawn, and Red Hare did not prevent her from enjoying the company of a splendid specimen of the opposite sex when she had the rare good fortune of encountering him. That's a fine stamp of a girl, he cordially remarked, as, having at her request pulled the boat to the edge of the stream, she landed and sprang up the bank for ferns. But not by any envablement could I induce him to give an opinion of Dawn, which was propitious of her being his real lady. When we pulled downstream again, between the fertile farmlands spread with occasional orange and lemon-groves, beautiful with their great crops of yellowing fruit, we found that the other party were already deserting their craft. We had to give at rest. Mr Eward soon got windered, I never saw any one pull a boat so splendidly as you do, Mr Ernest, called the outspoken Carrie, who had not acquired the art of paying a compliment to one member of a party, without running amuck of the feelings of another. Eward, despite his shapely and imposing bulk, had not developed his athletic possibilities so much as those of the Gourmand, and, reddening to the roots of his stubbed hair, he looked the reverse of pleased with the tackless young woman, an expression usually to be found on the countenance of one or more members of a company following the publication of her opinions. Miss Grovner and Ernest continued to chat with such apparent enjoyment that Dawn said pointedly, Poo! there's no art in pulling a boat, any galoot with a little brute force can do that. A remark having the desired effect, for the young Breslau feigned not to hear, his face rivaled the colour of Dora's, and his remarks grew absent. Oh, I don't know, persisted Carrie, I know plenty of glutes, they're the only sort of men there are in the Nanoon district, and they can't row for sour apples. Dawn singled out Dora Eward, and went up the bank with him, leaving the remainder of us together. Miss Grovner favoured us with a cordial invitation to partake of the hospitality of her home during the following evening, and delighted with the intelligence and go of the girl, I was pleased to accept. Ernest said he would be delighted to escort me, but Carrie said she had her work to do, and had no time to run about to people's places. Miss Grovner received this with a merry twinkle in her eye, and said to me, Well, Dawn will come to show you the way, it is an uncomfortable path if you don't know it, and with this she bagged good afternoon, and ran around the orchard among the square weed and wild quints, across an area abounding in lines of barbed wire. Ernest too departed in a triangular direction, leading to the curious old bridge spanning the stream. What makes him hang around here so long? asked Carrie. Has he a girl in the district? Do you think he seems gone on dawn? Perhaps it's Carrie. No such luck, I wish he were. I suppose he has money, they say over where he boards he has a set of rooms to himself, and is very liberal. What would he be doing up here so long? He doesn't publish his business, perhaps he's staying in this nice quiet nook to write a book or something, I said, idly, by way of accounting for his idleness, or the curious might have set to work to discover more of his doings, than he wished to get abroad just then. He doesn't look much like the fools that write books, but everyone is writing one these days, I know, or five or six about in a noon even, it seems to be a craze. Perhaps a cycle. I often wonder who is going to read them all and do the work. This brought us to Clay's, Carrie supporting me on her arm, and thus ended her discourse. Dora stayed for tea, but it was a dull meal, as dawn now appeared desirous of repelling him. Andrew, who on account of his drubbing had been very subdued during dinner, had regained his usual form, and when Uncle Jake, to whom the freeing of women seemed an unabating irritation, remarked, This is young Walker, all the women will be mad for him, Because he's good-looking, and got a soft tongue, they ought to stick to the present member who is known, this other fella hasn't been heard of. His grand-nephew replied, Like Uncle Jake, he's been in the municipal council fifteen years, and never got heard of. He ought to put up and see would the women go for him, because he's never been heard of, and is a bit good-looking. Well, there's one thing to his credit, and that is, he's lived over sixty years, and never been heard of stealing the fruit out of people's gardens, and as for looks, and some is, who, handsome does, said Branmar, which affected the collapse of Andrew. In the clay household there were ever current reminders of the truth of the old proverb, warning people in glass houses to abstain from stone-throwing. Dawn did not appear before me that night until I opened my door and called, Lady Fair, the Kimono awaits thy perfumed presence. I don't want to come to-night. I feel as scotty as a bear with a sore head. But I want you, youth bus ever give way to grey hairs. With that she appeared, and throwing herself backward on my bed, thrust her arms crossly above her head, amid a tumble of soft, bright hair. Youth, health, beauty, and love is not lacking. What excuse have you for being out of tune? I want you to pilot me to tea at Grovener's tomorrow evening. Miss Grovener has invited you, Ernest, and myself. She just wants Ernest. She's terribly fond of the men. Well, did you ever see a normal girl who wasn't? And Mr. Ernest is a man worth being fond of. I dearly love him myself. Poo! I don't see anything nice about him," said Dawn aggressively. But you'll come to tea, won't you? No, I can't. I never go to Grovener's. Mama doesn't care for them. She says he was only a pig-buyer, and settled down there about the time she came here, and now they try to ape the swells and put on ears. They only come here to try to get on terms with some of the swell men. I wouldn't take him over there to please her if I were you. That's where you and I differ. I would just like to please them, and I am sure it will do Ernest good to be in the company of such a pleasant and sensible girl as Ada Grovener. Yes, it would something to do him good if I am any judge. Dawn's pretty mouth and chin were so quarrelous that I had to turn away to smile. So you won't come to tea? I can't. I'd like to please you," she said, somewhat softening. But I've promised Dory Ewood I'll go out rowing with him again to-morrow. He says he has something to say to me. He's been going to say this something for a long time. Yes, but I stave him off. I know what it is right enough, and I don't want to hear it. But I suppose I had better please Grandma. So you like him? No, I detest him, and feel like smacking him on the mouth just where his underlip sticks out farther than the top one every time he speaks. But what am I to do? I'd never be let go on the stage, and I might as well marry him as any one. Why marry any one? At nineteen, or ninety for that matter, there is no imperative to hurry. To marry a man you dislike, because you cannot attain your ambition is surely very silly indeed. Would you not love Dora if you could go on the stage? I wouldn't be seen in a forty-acre paddock with him. I'd like some man who had travelled, not an old Australian thing just living about here. I'd like an Englishman who'd take me home to England. You mustn't disparage your countryman while I'm listening, as you'll find no better in any country or climb. As remember they were among the first to enfranchise their women, and thus raised them above the status of chatteldom and merchandise. They only gave us the vote because they had to. Women have had to crawl to them for it, and pretend it was a great privilege the sweet, darling, or mighties were allowing us, when all the time it has been our right, and they were selfish cowards who deserved no thanks for withholding it so long, and they gave it that grudgingly, and if that narked about it, it makes me sick. Of course, when the matter is stripped to bare facts, the truth of your remarks is irrefutable, but we must gauge things comparatively, and remember how many other nations won't even grudgingly free their women. If you don't like Ewood, I can't see any pressing necessity to think of marriage at all. Oh, well, I'd have it done then, and wouldn't be everlasting plagued on the subject, she said, with the unreasonableness of irritability. Would it not be better, though, to wait a little while in hopes of a better choice? But I suppose it will always be the same. Any man at all worth consideration is sure to be married, or at any rate is engaged. Here was the clue to her irritation. It was that imaginary young lady of Ernest Bresselors. Had she been a man, ere this, she would have plunged into vigorous attempt to dislodge that or any other rival, no matter how assured his position, but being a woman and compelled to await, that idiot chants her imperial fate, the effect of such suppression on so robust and strenuous a nature was this form of hysteria. Well, what about a struggle for the desire of your heart? Undoubtedly you have, if well trained, sufficient voice to be a great asset on the stage, but it would take at the very least two years hard work under a good master before it would be in the least fit for public use. I'd be twenty-one then. You are just at a good age to stand vigorous training. But what's the use of talking, she said hopelessly. You don't know how mad Grandma is against the stage. She says she'd rather see me in my grave, and I feel I'd never prosper if I went against her. Very likely her point of view is founded on hard facts, but training your voice isn't going on the stage, and in two years, if you are able to sing decently, perhaps no one will be so anxious as your Grandma that you should be heard. I've heard of such a case before, and I didn't add that two years was a long way ahead for an old woman of seventy-six, and also for a girl to whom study was not quite a fetish, an ample time for the or some night to have come to the rescue. These thoughts were not for publication, as they might have made me appear a traitor to the prejudices of one party and the desire of the other, whereas I was loyal to them both. It would be lovely if you could get on the soft side of Grandma, but I'm afraid it's impossible. Fancy being able to sing and please people, and travel about in nice cities away from dusty, dreary, slow, old Nanoon, said the girl, the crossness melting from her pretty face and giving place to radiance. She toyed with some silk scarves of mine, and between wiles said, Isn't it funny some people think one thing good and others don't? No one around here wants to be on the stage but me, or seems to understand that actresses are made out of ordinary people like you and me. Dora doesn't know anything about the stage, but Mr. Ernest does. He doesn't think them terrible women, and says that his best woman friend was an actress once. If you thought Grandma could be brought round at all, I wouldn't go out with Dora to-morrow. I'd go with you and get out of it. Mr. Ernest seemed very pleased with Aida Grovener. Is she the same style as his young lady? The question wasn't asked because Dawn was transparent, but because I had led her to believe I was dense. No, not at all, I replied. What is she like? She's about five feet five and has a plump dimpling figure, her hair is bright brown and her nose is an exquisitely cut little straight one. Here I observed Dawn casting surreptitious glances in the mirror opposite. Her eyes are bright blue with long, dark clutches, and she has a mouth too pretty to describe, fitted up with a set of the loveliest natural teeth one could see in these days of the dentist. It is so perfect that it seems unnatural and a sad pity that it should sometimes be the outlet of censorous remarks about less beautiful sisters, but its owner is very young, and not surrounded by the best of influences at present, and no doubt will have a better sense as she grows older. What's her name? Now you want to know too much, but I never knew another girl with such a beautiful one. She must be a beauty altogether, said Dawn rather satirically. She would be if she would only guard against being cross at times, but you must not breathe this to a soul as I am only going on supposition. Young earnest isn't engaged to her, but I have seen him with her once or twice, and he looked so pleased that I suspected him of kind regards as no man could help admiring her. Is that all? She said, in a tone of relief. He might not care for her at all. Just walking about with her and looking happy isn't any criterion. Men are always doing that with every girl. If her didn't look happy with me tonight, then, how do you account for that? She accounted for it with a merry laugh, as curled in the silk kimono she remained in possession of my nightly couch. I was espousing this girl's cause, because I could not bear to see her honest, wholesome youth and beauty making fuel for disappointment and bitterness as mine had done. There had been no one to help me attain the desire, the innocent, just and normal desire, of my girlhood's heart. No one to lend a hand till my heart had broken with slavery and disappointment, and at less than thirty-five all that remained for me was a little barren waiting for its feeble fluctuating pumping to cease. The girl presently fell asleep, so I covered her, kimono and all, and extinguishing the light lay down beside what had once been a tiny baby, his feeble life opening with the day had been nurtured on the milk of old ladybird, the spotted cow with a dew-lap and a crumpled horn. She was now, I trusted, enjoying the reward of her earthly labours in that best of heavens we love to picture for the dear animals that have served us well, and but for whose presence the world would be dreary indeed, while the sleep of her beautiful foster-daughter had advanced to hold dreams of jeweled gowns, thrilling solos, travel, and splendid young husbands who could do no wrong. But she knew no room for thought of Dora, who on the morrow was to row her on the noon. He might as well have relinquished the chase, for his chances here had grown as faint as those of pretty Dora Calper, whose leg he classically stated he had pulled, had grown with him. Ah, well, there is a law of retribution in all things, direct or indirect, visible or invisible. I lay awake a long time contemplating the best way of approaching Grandma Clay in regard to Dawn's singing lessons. One by one the passenger trains streamed into Nanoon, halted a panting five minutes at the station, then rumbled over the strange old iron walled bridge, slowed down again to the little siding of Kangaroo on the other side, from wence up, up the mountain sides above the fertile valley, leaving the peaceful agriculturalists soundly asleep after their toil. The heavy goods lumbered by unceasingly, the throbbing of their great engines, their signalling, shunting, and tooting, providing a perennial delight to me, comforting me with the knowledge that I still could feel a pulsation from the great population centres where my fellows congregate. It had lulled me to dozeness when I was aroused by the electric alarm bell, the purpose of which was to warn folk when a train neared the bridge. A very necessary device, as there was but one bridge for all traffic, it being cut into two departments by three high iron walls that shut out an exquisite view of the river, and confined and intensified the rumble of trains in a manner well calculated to inspire the least imaginative of horses with the fear that the powers of evil had broken loose about them. The alarm bell was humanly contrary in the discharge of its duty, and rang long and loudly when there was no train, and was not to be heard at all when they were rushing by in numbers. On this occasion, there being no train to drown its blatant voice, it so disturbed me that I was keenly alive to a dialogue that was proceeding in Miss Flip's room. "'You must go away,' I told you,' said Mr. Paunch. A nice thing it would be if a man in my position were implicated. "'I didn't think a man of your class would be so cruel,' sobbed the girl. En rejoinder, the man admitted one of the truths by which our civilisation is besmirched. There's only one class of men in dealing with women like you.' Then fell a silence, during which Dawn turned in her sleep, and I placed her head more comfortably lest she should awake and hear what was proceeding. Not that it would in any way have sullied her, for her virtue, by sound heredity, and hardly training, was no hot-house plant, liable to shrivel and die, if not kept in a certain temperature, but was a sturdy tree, like the tall, white-trunked young gums of her native forests, on which the winds of knowledge could blow, and the reins of experience fall, without in any way mutilating or impairing its reliability and beauty. It was for the sake of our poor sister Wayfarer, who was on a terrible thoroughfare, amid robbers and murderers, but who did not want her plight to be known, that I did not wish Dawn to awake. The passing of the trains Next morning, when Andrew and I had finished the separator, Emma came over to inspect the work. She sniffed round the dishes and cans, which barely passed muster, and then descended upon the table by running her slender old forefinger along the eaves, with the result that it came up soiled with the grizzy slush that careless wiping had left there. Look at that, you dirty good-for-nothing young shaver! If the inspector came round, we'd most likely lose our licence for it, and it's no fault of mine. If a great lump your age can't be depended on for nothing, I don't know what the world is coming to. I have to be responsible for everything that goes on your back and into your stomach, and yet you can't do a single thing. You think I'm everlasting jarring, but I have to be. Someday, if you ever have a house of your own, you'll know how hard it is. I'm going to take jolly fine care I never have no house of my own. The game ain't worth the candle, responded Andrew. I reckon them as comes and lives in the place, like some of them summer-borders, and orders us about as if they was Lord Mark, and we wasn't anybody, has the best of it. That ain't the point. I'm ashamed of that table. When I was young, no one ever had to speak to me about things once, before I knew. Once I left drips round the end of my table, and my mother come along, and, Martha, says she. It's a wonder the wonderful Jim Clay didn't say it, muttered the irreverent representative of the degenerate rising generation, Soto Virtue. If that's the way you wash a table, says she, no blind man would choose you for his wife. For that was the way they told if their sweetheart was a good housekeeper, by feeling along the table when they was done washing up. And what did you say, interestingly inquired Andrew. I didn't say nothing. In them days, young people didn't be gabbing back to their elders when they were spoke to, but held their mag and done their work proper, she crushingly replied. But I was thinking, said Andrew, quite unabashed, that you was a terrible fool to be talking with that young, for who'd want to be married by a blind man? And I reckon the blind man oughtn't be let to marry at all. And I think anyhow he ought to have been glad to get any woman without sneaking around and putting on airs about beer in particular. He earnestly contended. But that ain't the point anyhow, said she. Well, what did you tell her to me, for grammar? Hold your tongue, said the old lady I rightly. Sometimes you might argue with me, but there's reason in everything, and if you don't have that table scrubbed and cleaned proper by the next time I come round, you'll hear about it. With this she walked farther on towards the pigsty and cow bales, and considering there's a good opportunity for private conversation, I went with her, remarking in a casual manner, your granddaughter has a very good voice. Yes, a good deal better than some people, that think they can sing like Paddy, and set their selves up about it. Yes, but she'd badly needs training. She sings twice as well, as some that has been trained and fussed with. Probably, but she requires training to preserve the voice. She produces it unnaturally, and in a few years the voice will be cracked and spoiled. All the better, and then she'll give up wanting to go on to the stage with it. Is there anything frightful in that, I said gently. A great many mothers would give all they possess to get their daughters on the stage. It is an exploded idea to think the stage a bad place. A lot is always telling me that, and I believe them till I went to see for myself, and the fact was too much of an eye opener for me. I'll keep to my own opinions for the future. There will be three years ago this month, Dawn prevailed upon me to go to a play, there was a lot of blow about, and I was never so ashamed in my life. I didn't expect much considering the way I was read regarding theatres, but at bed all I ever see. What was it? I don't know the name, but it was a character of a play. There was women in it, must have been 40 by the figure of them, and they had all their bosoms bare, and showed their knees in little short skirts. They stood in rows and grinned, the hussies. They ought to have sat down and hid themselves for shame. I thought we must have made a mistake and got into a fast show, but we read in the paper after that among the audience was all the big bugs, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves and laughing as if it was an intellectual respectable entertainment. I wanted to get up and leave, but Dawn coaxed me, and I give in, and thought the next might be better, but it was worse. I'd give you my word for it. There was hussies there on that stage, before respectable people's eyes, trying all they knew to make men be bad. There was fast, pure and simple, just the same as some Jim Clay told me about once when he went to Sydney on his own. The way he described their carrying on was just like their mattresses on the stage. And me, a respectable married woman who's rare to family, haven't paid to look at them. I was ashamed to hold me head up after it for a long time. It's only act in Grandma, says Dawn, but to think that people would act things like that. No good modest woman would ever do it, and the Bible strictly warns us to abstain from the appearance of evil. And even that wasn't all. They come out and kissed one another. Married women supposed to be kissing other men. What sort of example was that to be setting to other men and women? It was the lauduous thing I ever see. I told Dawn she was not to breathe where we had been, and from that day to this I never would have an actor or actress in my house. I'd just as soon have a real loud woman as one who gets out on stage where everyone is looking at her and pretends to be one. She'd have no shame to stand between her and the bad. Oh no, there must be a reason in everything. I was prepared for a terrible lot of fools and rot, but that I should be so lowered was an eye opener. I feel exactly the same in regard to the stage, Mrs. Clay, but I like concerts when the singers just come out and sing. Do you not? That ain't so bad, I admit. You would not object to Dawn singing on a platform, would you? No. Doesn't she often sing on the platform in Nanune? They're always after her for some concert or another. It's a bad plan to sing too much for them. They don't thank you for it. They'd only say we're tired of him or her, and the one who'd be sour and wouldn't sing often would be considered great. Well, let her have lessons, so she could sing with greater ease at these concerts. She can sing well enough for that, and will be throwing away money for nothing. But if trained, she could sometimes command a fee. I've got plenty to keep her without that, said the old lady bridling, and it might give her stronger notions for the stage. I was thankful that I had never published my calling. I had my own ideas of them before, talking about, and everything they do or say, they're wondering what people are thinking of them, and if they're observing what great bands they are. And I've seen Amir going in for drink and all bad practices, only I remonstrate with them. It's me temperament, says they, and led me to believe, by the airs of them, that this temperament makes them superior to the likes of ordinary human bands like me and you. And this temperament makes them not fit to do honest common work, but is making them low crawlers. There's a thing that at the same time makes them superior. I don't seem to self-habit who things can be reconciled. There must be reason and everything. If you want to turn your grand-offer from the stage, let her start vocal training. You'll see that before twelve months she'll have enough of it. It would keep her content for the present, and in the meantime she might marry, I contended. If I could be sure she wouldn't come in contact with them acting on writing films, if she was to marry one of them that would be all up with her, do you know anything about teachers? Yes, I would be only too pleased to see to that part of it. Your grand-autor is a great pleasure to me. She gives me some interest in life, which, having no relations and being unfit for permanent occupation, I would otherwise lack. Well, I'm sure Dawn would interest anybody, and I think you're a good companion for her. She seems to have took up with you, and you've evidently been a person that's seen something, and can tell her this, that, and the other. But as for that, she don't want no talent to be better than most. Some people. Grandma always worked herself up to a pitch of congested collar when these unworthy individuals were mentioned. I'll think about the singing lessons, if it ain't beyond reason. She's been terribly good lately, and deserves something. Here's Larry Whitcomber Rove, and there's Carrie gone out to him. I want to see him myself. He's been a little too strong with his prices lately, but he's the obligentist fellow in many ways. I don't hear anything about it, not being Carrie's week in the kitchen when Larry comes. She's always ready to give Dawn a hand then. But we was all young once. I can remember when I worked a point, whether it was me turn or not to get near Jim Clay. Dawn, I think the battle for the singing lessons is half one, I said to that individual when I met her privately a few minutes later. Really? It can't be true, said the girl, with an intonation of delight. As she drew a tea-towel, she had been washing through her shapely herds, and rung it dry. Uncle Jake then entered, and cut short further private discussion. There, Dawn, he said, tossing a pair of trousers on the kitchen table. The seat of him is out, and I want to put him on to do a little blacksmithing. They're dirty. That's easy to be seen, and known too, as some people's things are always dirty, said she. When do you want them? At once? At once! You'll come in the middle of cooking some pastry, and want a woman to put patches on a dirty old pair of trousers, and then want to know why the dinner wasn't up to tick, and besides, it's Carrie's week in the house. For Dawn's sake, I would have offered to do the patching, but feared Uncle Jake might suspect me of matrimonial designs upon him, such being the conceit of old men. I never go to Carrie, he snapped, and it's a pity your mother wasn't alive instead of you. She could put a patch on in five minutes any time you asked her, but she never spent her time in roaring and ballering around after a vote. And so saying, Uncle Jake disappeared, leading his grandniece with her pretty pink cheeks steep into scarlet, and a spark in her blue eyes. The old dog, if he wasn't grandmother's brother, I'd hate him. It's always these calling old things who can do nothing themselves, and have to be kept by a woman, who are always the worst at trying to make a woman's position lower, and talk about them as inferior. He's always after a woman to do this and do that, and comparing her, I'd like to see the woman, mother or father, who could put a patch on those pants in five minutes. There's one way it could be done in time, I said, calling to mind a prank related by a gay little friend. Clap it on with cobbler's wax. Dawn's eyes danced, and the irritation receded from the corners of the pretty mouth, as, procuring a piece of cloth and a lump of cobbler's wax, she did the deed in less than five minutes, and Uncle Jake contentedly received his trousers, while I departed to put in some time with my friend Andrew, without telling her there might be a sequel to patching trousers with cobbler's wax. Well, Andrew, how goes the scrubbing? Oh, great, look at that, said he, drawing back to exhibit a really clean table, and as it would not have conduced to our friendship had I pointed out that it had been arrived at the expense of slushing the lime-washed wall on the stand of the separator, I wisely kept silent. There, I reckon me Grandma nor Jim Clay neither had never done a table better, he said, with enviable self-appreciation. You know, I reckon them old yarns about the people being so good when they were young as a little too thin to stand washin', don't you? You've only got to take the things the wonderful Jim Clay and me Grandma done when they was caughtin', do you get her on a string to tell you? And if Dawn'd done the same with any of the blokes now, she'd jolly soon hear about it, and as for old Jake there, I reckon I'd be able to put him through myself at his own age, don't you? Anyhow, I'm full of pharmen, it's only fills and horses sweat themselves, all the others go in for auctioneering, or parliament, or something, and have a fine screw comin' in for nothin'. But think of those watermelons, I said, for as a subject of conversation he most frequently and most lovingly referred to these. But I could buy a wagonload of them for one day's pay, and not have any tuggin' and scratchin' with them. Melons ain't too stinking, but lore, tomatoes is a stunner. They've wrought it till you couldn't stand the smell of them, and it'll give a billy goat the pip to hear them mentioned. There was no sale when the blowflies talked to him. One man down here had thirty acres. I'm going to be something so I can make a bit of money. No one thinks anything of you if you ain't got plenty money. You know how you feel if a person has plenty money, you think twice as much of him as if he hasn't any. There's nothin' to be made at Farman, Delvin, and scrappin' your eyeballs out for no return, said this youngster, who did barely enough to keep him in exercise, who had been fed to replication and comfortably clothed and bedded all his sixteen years. Lunch and or dinner was enlivened by an altercation between Dawn and her uncle. The blacksmithing to which he had referred was the act of sitting down beside the forge, where he had grown so warm that the sequel to mending trousers with cobbler's works had eventuated. The melted wax had attached the garment to the old man's person, and he had sat, his sitting capacity was incalculable, until it had cooled again, and on rising suffered an amount of discomfort it would have been graceful to leave to the imagination. Uncle Jake, however, was not so considerate, and aired his grievance in a manner too brutally real for imagination. To do her justice Dawn did not think of the joke going thus far, so I attempted to take the blame, but she would not have this. I want him to think I knew how it would turn out. I'd do it to him every day if I could. Grandma fortunately took her part, and the mirth of Andrew and Carrie was very genuine. I reckon I was as smart as my mother that time, giggled Dawn, as she carried in the dinner. It would have been a funny joke if he played it on some good-humoured young fellow, said Grandma, but Jake Bear is entitled to some kind of consideration because he's old and crotchety. I'd play it on Dora Ewood, said Dawn, only that he might stick here so that he'd never move at all if I didn't take care. The first moment we had in private she took opportunity of saying, I think I'll go over to groveness with you this evening, but not to tea. I'll go over to bring you home if you help me make some excuse to get out of going rowing with Dora. Why not come to tea? That would be sufficient excuse. Oh, but they try to ape the swells, and Grandma doesn't like them, but I'll be sure to go for you after it, and that will save Mr. Ernest coming round with you. I thanked her, though her escort was not at all necessary, seeing that instead of saving Ernest it would only make his present sureer. There being nothing else to do during the afternoon, I awaited the time of setting out for the groveness who tried to ape the swells, the swells of Nanoon. These being, as far as I could gather, the doctors, the lawyer, a couple of bank managers on a salary somewhere about £250 per annum, the stiff magistrate, and one or two others, surely an ordinarily harmless and averagely respectable section of the community, in aping whom one would be in little danger of being called upon to act up to an etiquette as intricate and tyrannous as that in use at court. In the old days the town had been the terminus of the train, and it had squatted at the foot of the mountains, while strings of teams carried the goods up the Great Western Road out to Bathurst and beyond, to Mudgey, Dubbo, and Orange. Nearly all the old houses, grandmars and groveness among them, had been hotels in those days, when the miles had been ticked off by the square stones with the Roman lettering erected by our poor old convict pioneers, who blazed many a first track. Every house had found sufficient trade in giving DTs to the burly, western teamsters who lived on the roads, dealt in no small quantities, and who did not see their wives and sweethearts every week in the year. As the afternoon advanced, true to appointment, Dora Eeward arrived to take dawn for a row. This chin was red from the razor, and he looked well in a navy blue guernsey, brightened by a scarlet tie knotted at the open collar. Displaying a column of throat, which, if strength were measured by size, announced him capable of supporting not only a dawn, but a sunset. He sat on an Austrian chair, for which he was some sizes too large, and too substantial, and reddened as he laughed and talked with Carrie, till I appeared and spent some time in talking and admiring his appearance, until dawn came upon the scene. "'Well, dawn,' he said. "'I'm waiting for this row. Are you ready?' Dawn glanced at me. "'Dawn has promised to chaperone me to-night,' I said. Dawn decamped. Miss Grovener has invited Mr. Ernest and me to tea, and to go without a representative of Mrs. Grundy, I believe, is not correct in the social life of Nanoon. Eeward laughed, but his face fell, and his reply showed him less obtuse than he appeared on the surface, seeing he was the first and only person to see through my matchmaking tactics. "'Touting for the red-haired bag-man,' he said, as Ernest could be seen swinging up the path. "'Supposing I am, what then?' I asked, regarding him with a level glance, and filling more respect for his intelligence than I had here to foreexperienced. "'Oh, well, I suppose all is fair in some things.' He would not say love, as that would have admitted too much, and a lover admitting his passion and a drunkard confessing his disease are exceptions that prove the rule. His remark was uttered with a broad good nature that would lead him to do and leave undone great things. In a desire to please the present girl, he was not above saying he had been pulling the leg of the one absent, but he would also be capable of standing aside when he felt deeply, as deeply as he could feel, to allow a better man's sea-room. And he was further capable of sufficient humility to think there could be a better man than himself. For so I judged him, and being the only narrator of this, the only history in which he is likely to receive mention, this delineation of his character will have to remain unchallenged. Ernest had a geranium in his buttonhole, and looked more immaculately spruce than ever, and even his red hair could not obliterate the fact of his being a goodly sight, and as such, Grandma recognised him. "'That's a fine sturdy chap,' she afterwards observed. "'It's a pity he ain't got something to do, to keep him out of mischief. Is he unemployed? He don't look like one of those Johnny's that has nothing to do, but hang around a street corner and smoke a cigarette.' The two young men measured glances, every wishes critically, as girls do under similar conditions, and then equally as casually, made reference to the weather. Ernest was somewhat overshadowed by Ewood, as the latter was superior in size and cast of features, being fully six feet, while Ernest was not more than five feet nine inches. But as a girl, very rarely, if she has a choice, cares most for the handsomest of her admirers. I was not in the least cast down about this. When it was time for me to depart, Ernest rose too, but not dawn. Ernest's face went down, Ewood's brightened. "'Miss Dawn is not coming over now, but later on,' I said. The men's glances reversed once more. As the former and I departed, Ernest carrying a rap for me, I heard Ewood say, "'Well, come on, Dawn, you're not going to Grosvenor's after all. It seems that old part he was only pulling my leg. Ernest could naturally struggle to talk with me, but I spared him the ordeal, and arrived at Grosvenor's, interestedly studied them to discover what manner of procedure trying to ape the swells might be—the swells of Nanune. The doctor who thought I might peg out any minute, and the bank managers and the parson's. The only difference to be observed between the tea-table at Clay's and Grosvenor's was that at the latter the equivalents of Uncle Jake and Andrew did not appear in a coatless condition, were treated to the luxury of table napkins, and Mrs. Grosvenor, who served, attended to people according to their rank instead of their position at the table, and entrusted them with the sugar-basin and milk jug themselves. Rather than this there was no distinction, and this was not an alarming one. Certainly Miss Grosvenor, who had not enjoyed half Dawn's educational advantages, did not as glaringly flout syntax, and slang was not so conspicuous in her vocabulary. She in Ernest got on so well that none but my practised eyes could detect that as the evening advanced his brown ones occasionally wandered towards the entrance door, which showed that much as Miss Grosvenor had got him out of his shell, she had not obliterated Dawn. That young lady arrived at about a quarter to ten, and we started homewards, determining to go a long way round, first by way of the Grosvenor's vehicle road to town, by this, gaining the public highway, along which we would walk to the entrance to Grandma's domain. This was preferable to a shortcut, and rolling under the barbed wire fencing in the long grass sopping with dew, which at midnight, or thereabouts, would stiffen with the soft frosts of this region that would flee before the sun next morning. Dawn's cheeks were scarlet from rowing on the river with Dory Eward, and she spoke of her jaunt as soon as we got outside, apparently pregnant with the knowledge innate in the dullest of her sex, that the most efficacious way of giving impetus to the love of one lover is to have another. This, however, is another art which, like good cooking, must be done to the turn, and in this instance there was danger of it being done too soon, as soon as Samor had not taken firm root yet, and a man, unless he be either of gigantic pluck or no honor at all, will not hurry to interfere with the secured property of another man. They chatted in a desultory fashion while I maneuvered to relieve them of my presence. The night was lit by a million stars pailing towards the east, where behind the hills a waning moon was putting in an appearance. The electric lights of the town scintillated like artificial stars, and a way down the long valley could be seen here and there, the twinkle of a farmhouse light, showing where some held mild or sail, or a convivial evening, for there were not many of the agriculturalists tired from their heavy toil who were otherwise out of bed at this ungodly hour of the night. The crisp winter air agreed with me, and I felt unusually well. Let me walk behind. This night is too glorious to waste in talking politics, so you young people get out of my hearing and thresh out your candidate's merit and demerit, and leave me to think, I said, for politics were in the air, and they were touching upon them. They obeyed me, and soon were lost to view in the dark of the osage and quince hedges grown as breakwinds on the west of Grovener's Orantry. Soon I could not hear their footfalls, for I stood still to watch the trains pass by. It was the hour of the last division of the western passenger mail, bearing its daily cargo of news and people to the great plains beyond the hills that loomed faintly in the light of the half-moon. Quarterly its huge first-class engine roared along, and its carriage windows, like so many warm red mouths, permitted a glimpse of the folk inside, comfortably ensconced for the night. It slowed across the long viaduct, approaching the bridge, and crossed the bridge itself with a roar like thunder, and it swerved round a curve to Kangaroo, till the window lights gave place to its two red eyes at the rear. As it climbed to the first spur of the great range, and all that could be seen was a belch of flame from the engine door as it cold, something of the old longing awoke within me for things that must always be far away. The throbbing engine spoke to my heart, and for getting its brokeness it stirred again to their measure. The rushing, eager measure of ambition, strife, struggle. I was young again, with youth's hot desire to love and be loved, and as its old bittersweet plumberings rushed over me, I rebelled that my hair was grey and my propeller disabled. The young folks ahead had put me out of their life as young folks do, and, measuring the hearts of their seniors by the white in their hair and the lines around their eyes, would have been impregnulous that I still had capacity for their own phase. Only the royalty of youth is tended love in full measure. Those who fail to attain or grasp it then find this door, from which comes enticing perfume and sound of luring music, shut against them for all time. And no matter how appealingly they may lean against its portals, it will rarely open again, for they have been laid by to be sold as remnants like the draper's goods, which have failed to attract a buyer during the brief season they were displayed. I stood under the whispering massage, and listened to the now distant train puffing its way over the wild mountains, also to be crossed by the great road, first cut by those whose now long dead limbs had carried chains. Members of a bygone brigade, as I was one of a passing company. But probably they each had had their chance of love, and the old bitterness upsprung that mine had not fallen thwart my pathway. Fear's struggle had always shut me away from similar opportunity to that enjoyed by the young people ahead. Put back your cruel will, O time, I cried in my heart, and give me but one hour's youth again, sweet ecstatic youth with the bounding pulse led by the purple mirage of hope, whose sirens whisper that the world's sweets are sweet and its crowns worth winning. Let me for a space be free from this dastard age creeping through the veins, dulling the perspective of life and leadening the brain, whose carping companions draw attention to the bitters in the cups of youth's delights, and mutter that the golden crowns we struggle for shall tarnish as soon as they are placed on our tired brows. Suddenly my bitter reverie was broken by the knight and the lady calling in startled tones. I replied, and presently they were upon me, dawn very much out of breath. Oh, goodness! We thought you were ill again. You have given us such a shock. You should not have been left behind. I was a terrible brute that I didn't harness the pony and drive over for you. And Ernest came in a slow second with, You should have taken my arm. And he wrapped my cloak about me with a high quality of gentleness, peculiar to the best type of strong man. Despite my assurance that I never had felt better, they insisted upon supporting me on either side. So slipping a hand through each of the young elbows conveniently bent, I playfully put the large hand on the right of me over the dimpling one on the left. There, I said, taking advantage of the liberties extended a probable invalid. I've made a breastwork of the hands of the two dearest young friends I have, so now I cannot fall. And seeing I put it at that, at that they were content to let it remain, and the big hand very carefully retained for little one so passive and warm in its shy grasp. At the gate I dismissed Ernest and dawn condescended to remark that he wasn't quite such a fool as usual, which interpreted meant that he had not been so gatheredly stand off to her as he sometimes was. The trains once more entertained my waking hours that night. Under Andrew's tuturage I had learned to distinguish the rumble of the goods from the rush of a passenger, a two-engine haul from a single and even the heavy voice of the big old shunter that lived about the noon station had grown familiar. But the haughtiest of all was a travelling engine attended only by its tender and speeding with a lightsome action, like a governor thankfully free from officialdom and hampered only by a valet. Using on what little time had elapsed since the work of the passenger trains had been done by the coaches, with their grey and bay teams of five swinging through the town at a gallop, and with their occupants armed to the teeth against bush-rangers, I dozed and dreamt. I dreamt that I was in one of the sleeping-cars, which had superseded Cobham Co's accommodation for travellers, and that from it I could see in a bird's eye view not only the magnificent belt of mountains, the bluest in the world, but whirling down their westward slopes with a velocity outstripping the scented winds from sand or ridges and mile-planes. I slid across that great western stretch of country where a portion of the railway line runs for 136 miles without rise or fall or curve in the longest straight ribbon of steel that is known. But ere I reached its end I wakened with a start through some falling in Miss Flip's room. Surely I had not slept for more than half an hour, because the light which had shone in the adjoining room as we returned from Groveners was still burning. Presently Miss Flip put it out, and closing her door after her stealthily made her way from the house. She trod cautiously and noiselessly, but her gown caught on the lower sprouts of the ragged old rose-bushes beside the walks, and though she took a long time to open the little gate opening towards the wharves and the narrow pathway running along the river bank to the bridge, it creaked a little on its rusty hinges, so that I heard it and fell to awaiting the girl's return. I waited and waited, and beguiled the time by counting the trains that passed with the quarter-hours. There were so many that I soon lost count. This line carried goods to the great wheat and wool-growing west, and brought its produce to the city. Many of the noisy trains were laden with 1500 and 2000 lots of fats, and the yearly statistics dealing with the sails at Homebush chronicled their total numbers as millions. From beyond Forbes, Burke and Brewerina they came in trucks to cross the bridge, spanning the noble stream at the mountain's base, but they never went back again to the great plains where they had basked in plenty, or staggered through droughts as the fickle seasons rose and fell. The voracious insatiable moor of the city was a grave for them all, and the commercial greed which falls so heavily on the poor dumb beasts in which it traffics, caged them so tightly for their last journey that by the time they reached Nanoon they were bruised and cramped, and not a few trodden underfoot. The empty trucks going west again made the longest trains, as they could be laden with nothing but a little wire netting for settlers who were fighting the rabbits, and were easily distinguishable from other goods, as when they clumsily and jerkily halted the clanking of their couplings, and the bumpings of their buffers could be heard for a mile or more down the valley. The splendid atmosphere intensified all sounds, and carried them an unusual distance, and many a time at first I was want to be roused from sleep in the night, with a notion that the thundering trains were going to run right over the house. On the night in question I had not heard Miss Flip return from her midnight trist, though all the luggage trains had passed, and it neared the time of the first division of the UP, or CITYWOOD'S MAIL, from the west, which was the earliest train to arrive in town from the country daily. It passed Nanoon in the vicinity of 4 a.m., a radiant hour in the summer dawn, but then in winter the time when bed is most alluring, when the passengers' breath come jails on the window-paints, they complain that the footwarmness have got cold, and give yet one more twist to their comforters, and another tug at their possum or wallaby rugs. This train passed with its shaking thunder, drew into Nanoon for refreshments, then on and on with noisy energy, but still Miss Flip did not return. I concluded that she must have decided to leave us in this fashion, or that I had missed her entry during the rumble of a passing train, or may have I had snoozed for a moment, or perhaps an hour, as the unsympathetic heavy-sleepers of the the insomnosts must do, and ceasing to be on the alert any longer, I really slept. I hastened to appear at the half-past-seven breakfast, as no excuse for non-appearance was taken, and the only concession made to Miss Flip, who had not been present at it for some time, was that she could make herself a cup of cocoa when she chose to rise. For this meal Grandma ladled out the porridge and flavoured it with milk and sugar in the usual way. I say, Dawn, which of them blokes Ernest or Dora is the best boat-puller? inquired Andrew, as he received his portion. You are mighty stingy with the sugar, Grandma! Dora isn't in it, responded Carrie. Mr. Ernest could get ahead of him every time. So he ought, said Dawn, his ears are the size of a pair of sails and would pull him along. Thus was published another defect in my night, till I feared that it must be only my partial gaze that discerned a night at all. Dear me, interposed Grandma, a man can't look or speak or walk but he's this, that, and the other. Things weren't so in my day. Of course there were some things that were talk exception to, but there must be reason in everything, and I don't see what difference a man's ears being a little big makes. My father's ears, your great-grandfather's, was none too small, and he was always a good kind man. I don't care if my own ears were big, it wouldn't make me like them, said the irrepressible Dawn, and Grandma had just finished what she termed docing, the last plate of porridge, when we were interrupted by the appearance of policeman Danby at the French lights. There was nothing strange in this appearance of the embodiment of the law, even at that early hour of the morning. For the huge man with a rollicking face and curly hair, though a good officer in attending his work was a better and admiring a girl, which, after all, taking matters at the base is the chief and most vital business of life, as, were it neglected, there would be no police or populace. Well, as I said, policeman Danby knew a pretty girl when he saw one, and there being two at Clay's, that household, in the way of the law, was very well looked after indeed, and for the purpose of escaping the annual registration fee, Andrew's little dog, Whiskey, had remained a puppy as long as some young lady's tarry under thirty. Carrie, unrising to admit the caller, had the usual tussle with the door, while Grandma reiterated uncomplementary remarks about the blessed fellow, who should some time since have affected repairs, and Danby upon entering wore an extremely grave face, looked neither at dawn nor curry, but addressed himself straight to Mrs. Martha Clay. I have to trouble you about a very unpleasant matter, he said, and cruelly all eyes went to poor Andrew, as it was but recently he had to be chased home for breaking the law. Yes, said Grandma, rising actively, and though a flurried colour came to the old withered cheek, the spark of battle flushed in the stern blue-gray eye. Could I see you privately? said Danby. Certainly, said Mrs. Clay, but I'm not fond of secrecy, things is better open, and this is the first time in my life I've had to be seen secret by the police. Come this way. We said nothing, but dropped our feeding tools and waited in suspense, till in less than a minute Grandma thrust her head in the dining-room door. For Mercy's sake, dawn, look in Miss Flip's room and see is she there. Dawn rose in a hurry, and boxed Andrew's ears as she passed, because he too rose and tumbled over his chair in her way. Some people ought to tie themselves up to be out of the way, she ejaculated. Miss Flip is not in her room, she presently called, and her bed is smooth and made up. God save us then, Mr. Danby says she's drowned in the river, exclaimed her Grandma. What's to be done? We'll spare you all the trouble possible, Mrs. Clay, said the man, with the respect always tendered the old dame. But I'm afraid it's a suicide. Some men going to work on the new viaduct just noticed her clothes sticking up as they crossed the bridge at daylight and reported it, and I was sent down. We've taken the body to Jiminy's pub, and sent for the coroner at all events. Dawn and Andrew hurled together in a frightened manner, while the sensible Carrie, who never lost her head, admonished them. Don't be jacked doors, that won't mend matters, perhaps it isn't half as bad as some make out, things never are when you get the right hang of them. Things are bad enough anyhow, but the way to mend them ain't to be snibbling, rupt out Grandma, giving Dawn and Andrew a shaking that braced them up. Things were indeed bad enough, and nothing could mend to them. They had gone beyond repair. It transpired that my senses had been correct, and poor Miss Flip had not returned that moonlit night as I lay listening to the passing trains. She had ended her ruined life by waiting her feet and dropping into the pretty stretch of water under the bridge, where the locomotives rushed by like thunder, and from where could be seen the twinkling electric lights of one of the oldest towns in Australia. The inquest at which we all had to appear elicited information that fairly stored poor Grandma's hair on end. It was a great blow to find that she had been harboring a woman who was not a Caesar's wife, and that it was fear of the penalty of her divergence from what is accepted as virtue had driven her to take her life, ere she had transmitted the tribulation of being to a nameless child. Nothing was cleared up regarding her antecedents. The person to whom she was supposed to be recommended to Mrs. Clay knew of no such individual, and no one came to claim her. Her uncle, it was discovered, had a day or two previously sailed for America on urgent business, and after the girl's death an affectionate letter for her arrived from him. She had left nothing to fix the blame where it belonged, but with the misdirected loyalty so common in her sex had paid all the debt her frail self. The post on the day of her death brought me a pathetic little note, in which she stated that she wished to bear the whole blame. A woman always had to in any case, and as she could not face it she had decided upon death. She had written this to me because she felt I had had an inkling of how matters had been with her, and she thanked me that I had kept silent, in conjunction with the observation that it was not usual for such as she to meet with forbearance from those who had had sense to preserve their respectability. Ah, the regret that consumed me that I had not risked the unpopularity of interference and sought her confidence, I might have been able to have saved her from such an end. I kept my knowledge to myself it would scarcely have hurt, Mr. Porch. Under the British constitution property is far more sacred than women, but having a fatality and belief that there is a law of retribution in all things I hope to be able to sheet this crime home to its perpetrator in a way that should put him to confusion when he least expected it. There was ample money for burial among the girl's belongings which were taken in charge by the police, and there let the cruelly common incident rest for the present. The affair so upset dawn that she refused to occupy her usual room any longer, and at her suggestion she and I determined to occupy a big upstairs room up till that time filled with rubbish. This being agreed upon, we forsook the apartments opening into the river garden, and betook ourselves to an altitude from which we had even a better view of the valley, river and trains. Dawn so perceptibly went off colour that I persuaded her grandmother to let the singing lessons begin by way of diverting her mind. The old lady would not contemplate paying more than two guineas per quarter, so I saw a six-guiney teacher arranged with him to take the pupil at four, two of which I privately paid myself, and dawn at last set out for the city for her first lesson in the arduous and unattractive booing and eyeing that lie at the foundation of a singer's art. In the career of a prodigy there invariably comes a time when it is compelled to relinquish being very clever for a child and has to enter the business of life in competition with adults. This crisis had arrived in the career of the prodigy Australia. It is at the time of electing new or re-electing old representatives of the people to the legislature that the state of a country's affairs is more prominently before the public than at any other. And preceding the state election in which Grandma Clay was to exercise the full rights of citizenship for the first time, it was a legubrious statement, that the country had gone to the dogs was avert by each candidate for the three hundred a year given ordinary state members, and each described himself as the instrument by which it could be restored to a state of paradisiacal prosperity. This is an old bogey unfailingly revived at elections. The ministerialists invariably roar how they have improved the public finances, while the opposition as blatantly tries to drown them by bellowing that the retiring government has damned the country and that the opposition has the only recipe of satisfactory reconstruction. But in spite of this threadbare election scare, the Commonwealth remained the freest and one of the wealthiest abiding places in the world. Just then its business affairs were undoubtedly badly managed, and mismanagement, if continued, inevitably leads to bankruptcy. Undeniably there was an unwholesome percentage of unemployed, inexcusable when there abounded vast areas of fertile territory quite unpeopled, minds as rich as any known to history all untouched, the sugar, grape, timber, and other industries crying a laugh for further development, and countless resources on every hand requiring nothing, but that these and men should meet on healthy and enterprising business terms. The population, instead of gaining in numbers, was foolishly leaving the country like over-indulged spoiled children, imagining themselves ill-treated, while others hesitated to come in because the Australian trumpet was not blown loudly enough, nor in the right key. The administration, like a young housewife tossed into an overflowing storehouse, had spent lavishly, but the bank of a multimillionaire will come to an end in time, and so with the play days of Australia. The hour had arrived for her to be up and doing, to marshal her forces, advertise her wares, and take her place as a worker among the nations. There are always old Bush lawyers and city know-alls beside, him Chamberlain and Roberts of its small tomahawks as empire builders, and these now were predicting that to make a nation of her, Australia needed war, and many other disasters to harden her people from the amusement-loving, sunny-eyed folks they were. But this was an extremist's outlook. She was in greater need of a land-law that would sensibly and practically put the right people on the soil and entice population of desirable class, independent producers, so that the development of the industries would follow in natural sequence. In short, Australia was languishing for a few patriotic sons with strong, clear business heads to apply the science of statecraft as distinguished from the self-seeking artifices of the mere job politician at present sapping her vitals, and all the elements for success were within her gates. I had long had an eye open for the discernment of such an embryo statesman, and looked forward with interest to the study of the present crop of political candidates. As soon as Leslie Walker, Ernest Breslau's step-brother, had been elected as the opposition candidate for Nanune, canvassing, spouting, war-whooping, and all manner of barricading, began with such intense enthusiasm that, fortunately, mis-flip-sad fate was speedily driven out of our thoughts. Dawn and Mrs. Bray were on Walker's committee, and nearly every night there was an advocate of one party or the other, gaskinaving in Citizens Hall. To Nanune residents it became what the theatre is to city patrons of the drama, and more, for this was invested with the dignity of a certain amount of reality. To women being in the fray many attributed the unusual interest distinguishing this campaign, but the real cause was that public affairs had come to such a deadlock that legislature, as the medium through which they might be moved, had become a vital question to the various numbskull, and all were mustering to ascertain who put forth the most favourable policy. With politics and her newly started singing lessons, Dawn was too thoroughly engrossed for thought of any night to pierce her armour of indifference, which was the outcome of full mental occupation. I invested in a nice little piano that was carried upstairs to our big room, and had undertaken to super intend her practising, but she was a more enthusiastic politician than a vocal student, as I pointed out to her grandmother's satisfaction. These happenings had eventuated during the first fortnight of May, and in the third week of this month Leslie Walker imported a couple of experienced renters to renew the attack and announce the villainy of the present government in loud and blustering, boat-catching war-woops. In the town itself nearly every third person was employed on the railway, and their only care in casting their vote was to secure a representative who would not in any way reduce the expenditure of the railways. Thus a parliamentary candidate in Nanoon had to trim his sails to catch this large vote or be defeated. It was the same with other factions. Any man with a common sense platform impartially for the good of the state at large might as well have sat down at home and have saved himself the labour of stomping an electorate and bellowing himself horse for all the chance he had of being returned. We turned out en masse from plays to hear the second speech of young Walker, assisted by two MPs belonging to his party. Grandma and I drove in the sulky, while the girls and Andrew walked ahead, the latter under strict orders to behave with reason, and not make a fool of himself with the lyricans. It was well we arrived early, as there was not sitting room for half the audience, though more than half the hall being reserved for the ladies, we got a front seat, and long before the time for the speakers to appear, every corner was packed, and women, as well as men, were standing in rows fronting the stage. A great buzz of conversation at the front, and stampeding and cat-calling among the youths at the back, was terminated by the arrival of the three speakers of the evening, who were received amid deafening, cockadoodling, cheering, stamping and clapping. An old warrior of the class, dressed up to the position of MP, sat to one side, and next to him was the barrister-type, so prolific in Parliament, who had himself dressed down to the vulgar crowd, while third sat Leslie Walker. Surely not the first Leslie Walker who had appeared a week or two previously. His bright, restless eye, though too sensitive for that of an old campaigner, now took in the crowd with complete assurance, and there was no hint of hesitation discernable. Having once snot-powder, he was ready for the fray. Why, Joe, hasn't Les bugged up? whispered Ernest, who sat on one side of me, where he had landed after an ineffectual attempt to sit beside dawn. Yes, if he can only roar and blow and wave his arms sufficiently, he may have a chance. But he's still nervous, said the observant Andrew from the rear. You watch him go for that flee in the leg of his pants. Sitting in full view of a chi-arking audience as a severe ordeal to an inexperienced campaigner with a sensitive temperament, and this action indeed, peculiarly like an attempt to detain an annoying insect in a fold of his lower garment, was one of those little mannerisms adopted to give an appearance of ease. Behind the speakers came, as chairman, one of the swell class almost extinct in this region, and he, too, had rather an effete attitude and physique as he took up his position behind the spindly table, weighted by the smeared tumblers and water-bottle. He rose with the intention of fluttering the speakers and audience in the orthodox way, but the electors, among whom a spirit of overflowing hilarity was at large, took his duties out of his mouth. Don't smooth, old cockroach! Let the other blokes blaze away, as we, the taxpayers, are paying dear for this spouting. The barrister-man MP burst upon them first with the latest trumpet blare with which speeches were being opened. Having been primed as to the magnitude of the railway vote in Nanu, first move was to throw a bone to it, and, metaphorically speaking, he got down on his knees to this section of the electors, and howled and squealed that all civil servants' wages would be left as they were. He took another canter to flutter the ladies, regarding the remarkably intelligent vote they had cast in the federal elections, and asserted his belief that they would do likewise in the present crisis, and introduce a nobler element into political life. Creatures, a few months previously ranked lower than an almost imbecile man, and with no more voice in the laws they lived under than had lunatics or horses. It was miraculous what a power they had suddenly grown. The man at the back saw the point. Blow it all! Don't smooch so! It ain't long since you was all reared up on your hind legs, showing how things would go to fury if women had the vote. Having got past this prelude, he proceeded with the vigorous volley of abuse against the sitting government, and showed how Walker, the opposition candidate, was the only man to vote for. He shook his fists, stamped and raved, and illustrated how much a voice could endure without cracking. The back people carefully waiting till he had to pull up to take a drink out of one of the glasses on the spindly table, when they got in with, you're mad, keep cool, you'll bust a blood vessel. When are you going to give Tomato Jimmy a show to blow his horn? This being a reference to the calling of the other speaker, he was a middleman in the vegetable and fruit market. The first speaker, however, was not nearly exhausted yet. He had to thump his fists on the unfortunate spindly table, and work off several other oratorical poses, and a deal of elocutionary voice play ere he was finished. I fairly rolled with enjoyment of the wonderful wit and humour of the crowd at the back, which, unless it be put down as the critical faculty, is an inexplicable phenomenon. Not one of the interrupters, if drafted onto the hustings, could have given a lucid or intelligent statement of his views, or indication that he was furnished with any, and yet not one slip on the part of a candidate, one inconsistent point, personal mannerism or peccadillo, but was remarked in an astonishingly humorous and satirical style. The barrister man having finished spouting, the commonsense individual, who always sits half way down the hall, and who, when he asks a question, has to face the double ordeal of the crowd and the candidate, said, The speaker has shown us all the things that other fellows can't do. We'd like another speech now, stating what he can do. The chairman rose to say this was out of order, but his voice was lost in the din. Use it down old chap, we can manage this meeting ourselves. But out of respect to the ladies present. We'll look after the ladies too, with the good, humid rejoinder. Why, they're enjoying it as much as we are. They've got a vote now, you know, and are going to use it in an intelligent manner. Did you know Queen Anne was dead? said another. The ladies won't be harmed, any one that disrespects the ladies will be chucked out. The ladies had to laugh at this, and the meeting went right merrily, and more merrily in that half. The blowing from the stage was drowned by the interjectory din from the rear of the building, where lads and men stood chalk a block, the former, and the latter two, making right royal use of their licence to be rowdy. But such a good-natured crowd could not often be seen. There were no altercations, only laughter and the crude repartee of such a gathering. The first speaker, having returned to his seat in sanity, the second took his place. Hello, tomatoes, what's the price of onions and spuds? Now begin, and tell the ladies how intelligent they are, so you'll get their vote. Tomatoes did butter the ladies. Next yelled that the civil servants would not be retrenched, and then upheld the virulent attack on the government. Keeping in time with the utterances of Tomato Jimmy, the boys at the back grew so boisterous that at one time it appeared inevitable that the meeting must break up in disorder. The chairman, the candidates, the ladies, the whole house froze, and one man towards the front made himself heard amid the babel, to the effect that the ladies ought to walk out to show their resentment of the insults, that had been offered their presence by this disorderly behaviour. Ladies, don't go. Dear ladies, don't go. Hold some wags. We're only educating you in politics. Learning you how to be like your superiors. Men. This evoked a round of laughter, and order was restored. That's right, ladies, don't go. If you was to turn to organist now, we'd be so crestfallen we couldn't think about politics and save the country at all. Once more Tomatoes belched forth the infamy of the government, and louder and louder he yelled till one marvelled at his endurance. Ruffer and hotter grew his repartee, till, by sheer abuse, he gained the ascendancy. But there was no sane statement of what he would propose as a remedy. Grandma Clay happened to rise as he neared the finish to see about a radical she had dropped, and proved to target for those at the rear. Hello Grandma, are you going to contradict him? Give us a straight tip about women's rights while you're up. And poor Grandma sat down, very precipitately, with an exceedingly deep blush. If only I could get the chance, she gasped. I'd give him a piece of me mind. Third on the list came Leslie Walker, whose improvement was beyond belief. No notes or hesitation this time. Each sentence was crisp and clear, and in every detail he affinced the facility for enacting his role, which is supposedly a feminine accomplishment. The Chairman, enclosing the meeting, rose to say, in reference to the Interjector, who said the Speaker was mad. Oh, that's what everyone said about you, when you were in the Council. And so you were too. And so are they all. Look at the roads we've got in the municipality, said a voice. So the Chairman had to let the meeting terminate with the candidates thanking the electors for the extraordinarily good hearing they had been accorded, it being part of the humour of politics that the worse the candidate is boo-hooed, the more stress he lays upon the good hearing given him, and the more scurrilous he is regarding his opponent, the more frantically he assures one that he is a bosom personal friend. Andrew and I had the distinction of going home under Grandma's tutelage, while Carrie and Dawn stayed behind to go to the ladies' committee rooms, and Ernest lingered to escort them. I say, Grandma, are you going to vote for that bloke? inquired Andrew. I'm going to hear the other side first and give me opinion after. There wasn't one of the swells there, was there? Dr. Smalley and Dr. Tinker both was. Yes, but I mean the women. And how on earth did old Tinker ever get away from Mrs. Tinker for that length of time? You'll never see one of them kind of women at anything that makes for progress. That's the way they make themselves superior to the likes of you and me, by never doing nothing only for themselves. Oh, we've got all we want, as it is, and don't want to vote. A woman's place is home. They say, if you ask them. It's all very fine for them, as has a man to keep them like in a band box. They would have found it different if they had to act on their own like me. I'm sick of this intelligence in women they make a fuss about all of a sudden. I've read a family and managed my business better than a man could. And what's there been all along to prevent a woman from stroking out a name on a paper I never could see. And there never seems to me much difference which name was struck out, for they're mostly a lot of imposters that only think of feather in their own nests. You'll always hear of women not being intelligent enough to do this and that, and these things is only what men like to invest their selves, and the things they make out God intended women to do is them the men don't like doing. You don't ever hear of them thinking women ain't intelligent enough to do seven things at once. Grandma was in great form that night, and not only led, but maintained the conversation. I rather like this young fella, but he ain't no sense much either. All he thinks of is Butman for the railway people, and it's the people on the land that ought to be legislated for first. They have a foundation of everything, other things would work right after. Everyone can't live in Sydney, and that's what they're all making for now. Everyone is getting some little agency, parasite business. They've got sense to see the people on the land as the most despised and sat upon. You don't hear no school and about they'll protect the farmer. No, here's a despised old party that them scuts of fellas on the railway would grin at and think their selves above, and scarcely give him a civil answer if he asks a question about his business, what is paying them fellas there to do for him, and which only for the producers wouldn't be there at all. Things is getting pretty tight on farms now. It means about 16 hours hard graft a day, to make not half what a railway man makes in eight hours. If you happen to have grapes or oranges, if they manage to escape the frost and hail and caterpillar, then the blight catches them, or there's a truth, and there ain't none, and if there's any, there's so much that there ain't no sale for them. And the farmer's life, I reckon, ought to be stopped as gambling, for a gambler's life ain't one bit more precarious. Then why the juice do you want me to go on the land? said Andrew. That ain't the point. It's the most sticking-out point to me, protested the lad. I reckon being on the land is a Marx game, scraping like a fool when a fella could be sitting in an office, getting all they want twice as easy. Here, you don't know what's good. It's more respectable of being on the land. You get the pony out and make the coffee, and hold your tongue. Andrew and I had undertaken to make the coffee for supper, and thus give Carrie, whose week in the kitchen it was, a chance to go to the meeting. They all arrived from it after a time, dawn and the night together, Carrie and Larry Whitcomb following. Oh, where was Dora? Who sat with you, Carrie? asked Andrew. There was a young lady named Carrie, who had a sweetheart named Larry. At the gate they often would tarry to talk about when they would marry. But this remark of Andrews to Carrie, dawn good-naturedly plunged into an account of the meeting. What did they do? asked Grandma. Do they only blabbed? Mr Walker was there to-night. We asked that chimney-girl from the pub to join, and she delivered a great parable at us, looking round all the time to see if the boot-licking tone of it was pleasing the man. She said that women ought to bring up their children to respect them. The most commonest idea some people has of bringing up their children to respect them, Grandma chipped in, is to let youngsters make toe rags of their mother, and boys only as high as the table think they can check their mother, because she's only a woman and hasn't as much right to be living in the world as them. And when they are twenty-one, the law confirms this beautiful sentiment. Least ways until just lately, she concluded. And this gemmity piece, continued Dawn, said women ought to treat their husbands decently, and she thinks a woman disgraces her sex by getting up on a platform to speak. I asked her if she thought they did not disgrace themselves and the other sex, too, by standing behind a bar and serving out drinks, and grinning at a lot of goods that ought to be at home with their families. And that was a bit of a facer. Then she said it was only the ugly old woman who wanted to shriek round and get rights, that men would give the young pretty ones all they wanted without asking. Of all the old black gin ideas, I always think that's the terribleest. A nice state of affairs if people couldn't get honest civilised rights without being young and pretty. And the fools, said the girl heatedly, can't they look round and see how long the beauty in youth business will work? Men, she says, ought to rule their stronger vessel, and Dawn gave inimitable mimicry of Miss Gemmity of the pub. If you take my tip for it, those girls that sing out, the men of the stronger vessel, are the sort that have a dishcloth of a husband, and never let him off a string. This attitude of mine was one of Dawn's distinctive characteristics. Having that beauty, which in the enslaved condition of women has always been an unfair asset to the possessor, to the exclusion of worthier traits, she was not, like most beauties, content to sit down and trade upon it, but had wholesomeer, honester, worker-day ideals in relation to the position of her sex. She was going to Sydney in the morning for her second singing lesson, and, as earnest by a strange coincidence, happened to have business that would take him on the same journey by the same train, I accompanied him to the gate to warn him against inadvertently divulging that I had been an actress by trade. I want to take you into my confidence, I said, as we passed several naked cedar trees, and halted in the shelter of some fine peppers that grew to perfection in this valley, where I related the trouble I had had to bring the old lady round to the idea of Dawn's singing lessons, and mention to the girl's ambition regarding the stage. Now, I continued, if the old dame were to discover I had been on the stage, she would think I was leading Dawn to the devil, and would not credit that no one is more anxious than I am to save her from the footlights, or that the best way to save her off is this training. My secret ambition regarding her, I said, critically, observing the strong knobby profile, is that within the next five years she should marry some nice youngster with means to place her in a setting befitting her intelligence and beauty. Have you got any one in your eye now? he irrelevantly inquired. And considering his stored where he filled my entire vision, as he rose between me and the light shed by the last division of the Western passenger mail, as itself importantly crossed the viaduct, I answered, Yes, I think I know a man who would just fill the bill. He did not ask for further particulars, but remarked, warningly, decent fellows with cash or scarce, they are inclined to get into mischief if they have too much time and money on their hands. That's it, and I would not like to make a mess of things now that I have taken up matchmaking. You'll have to advise me when matters get out of hand. A little practice may come in handy some day when you have half a dozen daughters. It would come in still handier now. They're sure now. You'd only have to ask to receive at your time of life and with your qualifications. I'm not so sure. You're the only one who has such an opinion of me, he said disconsolently. Others look upon me as a red-headed fool with big ears, etcetera. Unless I knew Dorn's idle words had returned to his ears, as these things invariably do, and had stung. Silly Billy, I'll take you in hand when I've settled Dorn. I'm the one to advertise your wares. For could I turn back the wheel of time, eight or nine years, and make us of an age? I'd make it leap year and propose to you myself. I'd like to propose to you without altering the time, he gallantly responded, apparently not in such deadly fear of a breach of promise action, as was Uncle Jake. If I don't move in the matter, Dorn will be marrying that Eward, and though he's a most handsome and worthy, soft as a turnip, contemptuously interposed earnest, eats too much, or would take twelve months hard training to make any sort of man of him. It would be a pity to see Dorn just settling down into the dull, drudging life of a farmer's wife, going to an occasional show or team-eating in a homemade dress, with two or three children dragging at her skirts, and looking a perfect wreck, as most of the mothers do. By Jove, yes. She has a right to be on the lawn on cup day, or in the front circle on first nights. She'd surprise some of the grandays, and with her vivacity and courage, she'd make a furorio for a time. She'd make a good sport if she were a man, assented earnest, no running stiff or jamming a jock on the post or anything like that from her. She'd always hit straight out from the shoulder and above the belt. Yes, she has particularly infatuated me, and I'd like to save her from Eward. Marry him to the girl grovner while you're about it, and that will dispose of him and suit her, for she strikes me as anxious for matrimony. She hasn't been—I began. Oh, no, I think she's a splendid woman in every way, but— But, even the finest and most chivalrous man, while he thinks the only sphere for woman is matrimony, yet is shocked if a woman betrays in the least way that her ambitions lie in the domestic line. Strange inconsistency. However, you will not let Dawn know my ideas of disposing of her, and with the want of perspicacity of his sex, or else with the wonderful power of covering his thoughts excelling that of woman, and of which women never suspect men, earnest promised without sensing what I had in view.