The Story of a Selection.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 203, 7 September 1901, Page 3 (Supplement)

The Story of a Selection.

By ETHEL TURNER, iathttf »t " Sevan Little Atatralians," " The Story of a Baby," " Tho Family at Misrule," etc, etc

CHAPTER Yin,

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER I.—The reader is introducJtotiW Cameron family, who are drag*L- ou t an existence on a small selecJmi at tVilgandra. Mrs Cameron is In vnrian<- with one of her girls, Challis, j£ is a child prodigy as a piano playThey have spent seveta! years at S'-jje and the mother writes that at wit'hey are able to get away to visit Jjstralia. if only for a short time. rw&PTER ll.—Mr Cameron, who is of artistic bent, and has considerable Sent as a painter, is a failure, owing to ik unpractical nature. His friends, after securing him place after place, get wm a position at Wilgandra under the lands d" rtment, and it is here that life talent of Challis develops, and her Genius arouses sufficient interest for money to be raised to take her to England.

CHAPTER lll.—Mrs Cameron, on settine out for England, left behind her a lady help, whose remarkable business Sties she calculated on to keep the nnnractical Cameron in the groove. But pre sis months have passed the girl marl s Without Miss Macintosh, household matters get in a terrible tangle, and the Miss Browne, who later is engaged as lady help, is not the sort of person to bring- aboUt an improvement. CHAPTER IV.—The wife in England Tecelves no inkling of the loss of the <lrst lady help, and of the way matters tie going at home. Cameron, with no one to spur him on, loses his billet. CHAPTER V.—Eventually, the man and ills .family drift on to a selection, and there Cameron vows to give up the Minting, which' was the primary cause ot his losing his position at Wilgandra.

CHAPTER Vl.—The trials and hopes of a family on a small plot of land are pictured-a family entirely devoid of any Knowledge of the working of the place.

CHAPTEE Vl.—(Continued.)

The children were still—a month after they had come—full of magnificent enthusiasms. Hermie and Miss Browne w Tere going to restore the' fallen fortunes of the family by raising poultry. Hermie worked intoxicating sums on paper, and even Miss Browne, distrustful of the child's arithmetic, on checking the figures could find so little wrong that she began to be a tremble with delight at the prospect herself. Bart himself, the only one of the family touched with caution, found they had left sufficient margin for losses, and Assented that a fortune might assuredly be made.

For who could dispute the fact that ,ih'e grocer charged from one to two shillings a dozen for his eggs, according to season? Let them reckon on a basis of one shilling. And Small, the butcher, charged three and sixpence to four and sixpence a pair for table fowls. Let them be very safe, and tfay two and sixpence.

They were starting with the twelve fowls the Dunks had left on the estate. Now if one hen in one year brought up three clutches of chickens, how many would that make? Hermie, with shining eyes, cried thirty-nine, but Bart, who had seen mortality among chickens, refused to put down more than twenty. "Very well," said Hermie, "count twenty if you like, only I know it will be thirty-nine, I shall be so careful of them. Twelve hens with twenty chickens each that will be— that will be—what are twelve twenties, Miss Browne?" "Two hundred and forty," replied the lady, aniazed herself that it could he/ so much—"two hundred and forty. Why I have never seen so many together in my life." ' Bart wrote down the figures two hundred and forty. "Fowls grow up in six months," Hermie said. "Lizzie says so, and her mother used"' to keep fowls. The journal says^-I read it this morning— that fow.lfi generally lay 200 eggs a year.

"Say 150," Bart said. "Very well," said Hermie. "Please Hiss Browne, what are two hundred and forty times one hundred and fifty?" "My dear;" .gasped Miss Browne, I ■—I really .'need a pencil for that." Bart offered his stump, and Miss Browne was five minutes working the sum, so sure was she she must have made an, astounding mistake somewhere. . '. '

; "It—it ■ certainly comes' to 36,000," She said at .last.

"Would you please multiply it by a Bhilling a dozen and say what "it comes to," was Her;mie's further request.

Miss Browne again took a surprising time to do the simple sum. "A hundred and fifty pounds," she «aid.

"That is for the first year," Hermie Enid, "but now would you please work it out on this big piece of paper and see what we /should get the second year.Two hundred and forty fowls -—" "And the : twelve you began with # top," said Roly. Hermie was quite willing to be cauJaoiis.

"We wont count them; we'll allow for. them dying, too," she said. "Two hundred and forty .fowls with, say, twenty chickens each in the year. What's that?!' •Miss Browne's pencil worked. "Four thousand eight hundred," Bhe said. "And they lay 150 eggs a year." i Miss Browne looked quite shaken at the result her arithmtic produced — feoioOO eggs—£3o,ooo. The excitement made her work out fee. results of the third year, and jshe weeping when the sum came out —£60,000. She was weeping for her grey spoiled life. Exquisite dresses, ty&yel, health even marriage, and httte children "of her own, would have Peeh.all possible had she worked years and years ago and fief to work with twelve fowls. , Bart still had misgivings. "More tiiiglit:die than that," he said. Vi Hei;ii_ie was quite pale with the excitement. "We have counted that half that come out die," she said, "and lizzie says her mother always reared *eh -out of every thirteen. We have ;*% counted &ix. But count three if

you like—still that is thirty thousand pounds. And we have not counted selling any." Even Bart saw the moderation that only counted three chickens to each hatching, and his doubts died away. Visions of all this wealth intoxicated the children; they tore their father from his book; Hermie told him, with eyes ashine with tears and little heaving breast, that he was never to do any more of that dreadful ploughing, that in three years they would be making thirty thousand a year at least by no harder work than just feeding the fowls and packing up eggs.

He smiled at them very gently— he could not bear to damp their ardour. In very truth he could not exactly find out why these figures should not be as they seemed. "Of course, you would have a huge feed bill and want a big run of land," he said.

Bart gave a comprehensive sweep of his young arm towards the scrubby bush land that lay around them. "As much as we like for a shilling an acre a year," he said.

"But the feed bill?"

"Five thousand a year would buy enough at all events and still we'd have twenty-five thousand left," Hermie said jubilantly. "You will give up the ploughing, won't you, daddie?"

Cameron temporised, and said he would just do a little while the chickens grew.

That night a violent wind came up with drenching rain. Cameron lay listening to it, wondering what skies were over the head of his beloved, whom the seas held from him.

Then he heard doors opening and shutting, whispered words, and finally a series of very angry cackles. He threw on some clothes and went to find out the meaning. In the livingroom an oil lamp was flaring in the draught, a Plymouth Rock was roosting on the piano top, a white Leghorn was regarding the sofa suspiciously. On \he floor sat Hermie, rubbing a wrathful fowl dry with a Turkish bath towel, and presently in staggered Bartie and Miss Browne i the former with five fowls by the legs, the latter nervously holding one at arm's length.

Cameron fell into a convulsion of silent laughter, so earnest were the children, so absorbed. And Miss Browne, poor Miss Browne, how ludicrous she looked with her scanty hair flying ragged round her shoulders, her figure clad in an ancient macintosh, her mouth frightened, her eyes heroic with the endeavour not to let go of the fowl who twisted itself madly to peck at her trembling hand.

"I don't know what you are laughing for, papa," Hermie said, a trifle offended; "the fowl house leaks dreadfully."

"But it has rained half a dozen nights since we came —you never brought the things in here before, my child" he urged.

Hermie received Miss Browne's contribution on her knee, and fell to drying its dejected feathers.

"We didn't know before that each of them was worth two thousand five hundred pounds," she said. "Please, papa, will you hold Bartie's fowls so that he can light the fire. We are going to give them something hot to drink."

CHAPTER Vn.

COME HOME! COME HOME! "Oh that 'twere possible After long grief and pain, To find the arms of my true love Around me once again." Five years dragged on. Sometimes word came that the travellers were at last coming home, and Cameron's heart grew warm, only to grow cold again as he realised he dare not let them come to this. Then while the agony of dread still was crushing him the next mail would bring the bitter relief that the time was not yet, the agent or the music masters or someone else had found another year was necessary or the great career would be spoiled.

Not one word all this time of the Selection, else had the "career" been in instant danger of the ruin predicted, for the mother would have journeyed at the greatest possible number of knots an hour back to them. Her Dreamer of Dreams, depending on a Selection, her children depending on her Dreamer, become his own master.

Yet heaven knew the man had had his lesson, and toiled now marvellously, piteously.

Five years and not one idle day.

Five years bewildered, struggling w^th unknown enemies—droughthurricanes of wind, bush fires, devastating rains, a soil that the farmer born and bred could hardly have made pay. Never a complaining word; Hermie, growing to womanhood, broke her heart over his life at times.

There was even a day when she fell down on her knees at a chair and covered paper wildly with a pen that commanded her mother to come home.

Cameron, working obstinately on one frightful day—the thermometer 117—had a "touch of the sun," and even after the doctor had left him quietened, his head in cool cloths, his temperature falling, he still moaned for his wife, cried to her like a child, stretched out his arms, raved, besought her to hold his hand. It was then that Hermie broke her promise —down on her knees, just hidden by the bed curtain, writing wildly with the pen she had brought for the doctor to write his-prescriptlon. "By the next boat," she wrote, if you wait for one after it will be wicked of you. How can you stay like this. Challis—Challis, all our lives spoiled for her to have a chance. We have no chance. Father's life is worse than any dog's. Challis; I think I hate Challis. Going along quietly and happily are we? Miss Macintosh taking your place? We

are starving, worse than starving. The *food we have to eat is worse than none at all. He needs delicate things— ice and invalid dishes, properly cooked. I have just been to the safe to look what I could get, and the mutton has gone bad —it goes bad nearly every day in summer here— there is no milk, for the cows have no feed; there is some nasty mouldy bread and bad butter, and golden syrup, with flies in it, and sugar alive with ants. You! You and Challis are eating the best things that can bo bought with money. I hate Challis. The doctor says we are to keep his head cool with water and to stand vessels full of water about the room to cool the air. The well is nearly dry, the sun has turned the tank water bad, or else a wombat or a bird has fallen in—it is poisonous. Bartie has gone a mile with the cart to beg some from the Dalvs.

"Miss Macintosh taking care of us all so nicely! We have no one in the world but Miss Browne. Oh, yes, we have told you lies and lies, but you ought not to have believed them. You should have come to see lor yourself that he was happy and well. Oh, if you could hear him crying—just to hold your hand, he says, and to hear you talk. Ah, mother, mother, mother, how cruel you are!"

But the spirit of the man, just learning to be indomitable, kept him back from long illness. In four days he was up again, easily turned sick and faint, but able to lie on the sofa and even take an interest in the delicacies that Hermie set before him. She had ridden Tramby into Wilgandra herself, gone to the grocer and implored him for nice things—calf's foot jellies and whitebait, and Canadian tinned fruit. "My sister, Challis Cameron, the pianist, will be back soon. I have written for them to come. So you will be sure to be paid." And the grocer, a kindly spot in his heart still for the youngest housekeeper he had ever taken orders from, made up a big basket of tinned goods, and said he would wait for Challis to pay him. "Hermie," Cameron said from the sofa, on the fifth day, "my head is still confused, but I seem to remember when I was very bad that you kept telling me mamma was coming. There has been no letter has there?" Hermie grew a little pale. "No, there has been no letter, papa," she said. "Hermie," he cried, after spending a minute trying to find the reason for her curiously averted head, "You did not write for mamma, Hermie?" She turned to him then, her blue young eyes on fire. "I did," she said, "it is time, more than time, she came. If she does not come soon you—we —we shall all be dead." "Child, child," he said. He had risen from his sofa and gone to the window to look once more with aching eyes at his wretched lands. If this had been the green isle in the sea he had dreamed of making it, he would have sent long ago himself. But these desolate acres! "Child," he groaned, "I couldn't let her come to this. I am only half a man, half a man. God left the manliness out of me when he made me, and gave me womanish ways instead. And I have never fought them down as it must have been meant I should do. But I will begin again. I will work harder, things must take a turn, then I can meet her and she will, not despise me. Child, God has no more awful punishment than when He lets those we love despise us. Send another letter; tell her not to comenot just yet. Let me have one more chance." Hermie was sobbing at his side, pulling at his arm, trying to urge him back to the sofa. She knew he was not tailing to her, knew he ;.was hardly aware she was there; but her sensitive spirit, leaping at his troubles with him, was bowed down with the knowledge and weight of them. How she loved this man—this crrey haired, blue eyed man at her side. Hardly the love of daughter for father. Her feelings for him had m them something of the passionate, protecting tenderness of a mother for a crippled child. ' "Lie down," she cried, "there. Let me move these pillows. That is better. She must come. She should have come long ago. And I told her to be sure to come by the next boat. Now lie still. I am going to get you lunch." . , ~ . -, The exertion and emotion hadtneo him exceedingly. He lay still, still, his face to the wall; and now his mood brought a tear from under his eyelid. It was too late. She would have started. Ah, well, praise God for that; God who took these things out of our hands. She was coming. He might give up for a little time and lie with his head on her breast. She who had always forgiven him would forgive him still, and clasp him to her and call him "Dear One." Then all he would ask would be the happiness of dying before the world began again. The happy tears rolled down his cheeks. Hermie, tip-toeing back with her tray, saw them and was filled with dismay. What had she done by this interference? "Darling," she said, dropping beside him. "don't mind, don't mind.^ The letter is not posted yet. Bartie was o-oing to take it in this afternoon. It is not mail day .till to-morrow. We will not send it." ____,„. Not posted! Not posted! She was not coming. She might not know of his extremity; his need for her! The chill wind passed over him and dried his tears, dried his heart. "Here is the letter," the poor child cried. "Don't look like that, darling, 'i would not vex you for the world. Shall I tear it up?" He looked at it piteously. Oh, that Bartie had it, riding with it through the bush, summoning her, summonlU"Shali I burn it?" said the poor little girl. „ _. "Yes "he said, "burn it." His voice was lifeless; his eyes stared dully at the wall.

AN ATHEIST,

"Thou has made them equal unto us which have born the burden and heat of the day."

Hermie put her letter and all hopes of salvation together into the kitchen fire.

Life was an endless drab again. She went listlessly out and stood on the doorstep to look at it.

Her father did not want her. He had pushed his lunch aside and bid-

den her irritably—he who was so gentle—to leave him to himself.

Bart, poor, grave little Bart, a man i;t fourteen, was working about the place. Neither he nor the 3 roung ones had gone to school while the father had been ill. He and Holy had been all the morning beating monotonously at a bush fire just across the road. There was no excitement about it; there seemed little danger. The fire burned quietly, steadily. It had been burning for two days, but this morning, it had crept to the fences; the boys had been obliged to cut boughs and beat at it. Koly sat on the fence most of the time and sleepily kept back the cunning yellow tongues from the patch Bart had entrusted to him. Bart walked xip and down, mechanical ly threshing out the little licking flames that longed to curl round the fence. Sometimes he left Roly on guard and went to do necessary work—feed the two calves, shed a burning' tear over the dying sheep, and give Tramby a few drops of water. Herinie went down to him wearily, a sunbonnet ou her head. "There's no danger about the fire?" She looked at. it a little apathetically. "Oh, no; if there were three of us we could put it all out. Holy's not much use, of course." "Bart, what are we going to do?" "For water? Oh, Daly's going to let me have a big cask to-night — you've got half a bucketful still, haven't you? I didn't want to take Tramby out till it was cooler. R'minds me, I must mend the cart —that old shaft's smashed agaiu." "And when that cask's gone?" "Oh, I'll go and get some from old Perry; his well's not half dry, and there's only himself. But don't you go and be wasteful, Herm—no washing clothes and that sort of waste." "I want a bath—l want to turn on a tap and not have to use just a dipper or two. All Ghallis has to do is to turn on a tap." Hermie spoke with a strange bitterness. Bart smiled good humouredly. "Yes, she's a lucky little beggar," he said. "My word, if I could have the bathwater she wastes, I'd make this poor old place look up a bit." He looked round on the desolate acres—looked at them with yearning affection. He was a quiet-natured boy; he did not call himself unhappy; he would have felt he had nothing left to ask for had he but a plentiful water supply for the stock and crops, and better tools to work with, and a little more strength in that young arm of his. Like his mother, he had the knack of doing the thing at hand with all his power, and already he was a far more proficient farmer than his father would ever be. "What are you going to do now?" the girl asked as he hurried away. "I'll come with you, if you like." Such a hot, patient, young face his was; it smote her that she seldom heeded him. He looked pleased at her faint show of interest. He showed her the corn, coming up bravely; the wheat patch, not drooping quite as much as it might have done; he pointed to the trees in the little orchard. "In another month,or two those apricots and peaches will be about ripe," he said. "Make a nice change, won't they?" His eyes dwelt lovingly on the green, small fruit. "When tlie drought breaks " "Pshaw!" said the girl. "Oh," the lad said cheerfully, "it will, one of these days—then we'll go along grand." He had caught the spirit of patience of acceptance of ills from the settlers about. "But the sheep—nothing will give them ' life again.' The girl's eyes burned. The boy had no fortitude against this. He gave a sudden, wet glance towards the far end of the selection. "Let's go and see how they're getting on," he said in a low tone. The girl rebelled. "No—why?" she said. "It only makes us miserable and we can't help." "All right. You go back, Bart said. "I'll have to go. I might have to light another fire." Hermie followed him. ■The sheep crept away from the house to die once they found no water was to be found there. They chose to lie down and cease to be at the spot where once had been a dam. Patches of ashes showed where Bart had piled wood over the poor carcases and burnt them up in his wise young knowledge that the air must be kept pure. None were dead to-day, though fifty seemed dying. Half a dozen brown, ragged little lambs filled the air with piteous outcry. Hermie's heart swelled. Cant you do anything?" she said. "No," he said. "They'll have to go. I've had to1 give them up, dear. If I can get water for the house for the next week I'll be glad. Daly is running very short himself." There were footsteps in the' bush just near, a panting of breath, a curious dragging sound. "Floss," said Hermie, and remembered for the first time she had not seen her little sister for hours. "Where can she have been 1 n

The child was dragging a bucket. Her face was almost purple with the heat. She had kept' her eyes half closed to shut but the almost unendurable glare, and did not know she was close to home till she stumbled almost into Bart's arms.

When she saw Hermie there too she clung to the handle jealously. "It's not for the house," she said, "so don't you think it is. Let it alone, Bart. Bart, if you take it I'll scratch." Such a fierce little face it was. ;''-' "I'm only going to carry it for you, Chucks," Bart said. "You shall do what you like with it." "Ture'n honour?" "True and honour." The little girl relinquished her hold but kept a guarding 'eye on the precious fluid. "Where'd you get it, old girl?" Bart said. " "Don't tell father." "Why ever not?" said Hermie. Floss turned on her vehemently. "I took it," she said. "Don't care. I'm glad. They've got a whole cask, the greedies, and lots of money,_ so they can get as much as they like. They get casks from the bore, and they're sent down in the train, and they've got a cart to fetch it. They drink it all themselves—pigs. They don't care about the sheep. "Not the Seotts, Floss? You've not been stealing the poor Seotts' water?" cried Hermie, aghast. The Seotts lived in a miserable hut on the adjoining selection and were the nearest neighbours.

Flossie's eyes blazed indignantly. "Them!" she said. '"They've got

less than us. I got it from those mean measuring men."

Hermie looked puzzled. "She must mean the camp of surveyors down the road," Bart said. "It's a mfie away at least. Why you, poor old Flossie, have been right down to the camp for this little drop of water?" he puts his disengaged arm over her bony little shoulders.

Floss caught her breath and looked unhappily into the half full bucket.

"The first one was fuller," she said, "but the s—sheep nearly knocked me down to g —get at it, and they s—s — spilled it on the g —ground." Her voice shook with sorrow for the waste. "Twice," muttered Bart. "She's been twicte, Hermie." They were back among the sheep now, and Bart hardly knew what to do with such a drop among so many/ "This one," said Floss. "Look at "its poor eyes, and that one lying down, and the little lambs, Bartie."

Bart put the bucket to tlie noses of the ones she touched, but had to drag it away before the poor things had half what they wanted. A piteous bleat went up from the others.

"I—l think I'll just get one more," "Floss said, and almost staggered to the bucket. "It's quite easy to steal it now. The camp's left all to itself. Oh, I must get one more! Look at that one's eyes."

But Bart picked her up in his arms and started back to the house with her.

"You'll just come and lie down quietly," he said. "I never saw anything like your face. You'll be ill, like poor father. Poor little Floss! Poor little, old Floss!"

There—there would have been half a bucket more," said Floss, "only I nearly fell once and it s-s-spilled." She was sobbing on his shoulder, sobbing heartbrokenly, hard little Floss who never cried.

Hermie took the child from her brother at the door. "I'll undress her and sponge her," she said, "that will cool her a little, but I quite expect she will be ill, like father. Well it is all Challis' fault."

In an hour Floss was asleep, the fierce heat of her cheeks a little faded, and Hermie's hands were idle again.

Miss Browne was helping Lizzie to fold the poor rags of clothes from the wash—the father still begged to be left alone—outside Bart and Roly still threshed monotonously at the fire.

Hermie went into the tiny bedroom that had been run up for her because the house was too small—the bedroom that the mother had been so pleased to hear was built. She found herself looking in the glass at herself—looking sadly, listlessly.

•She saw a girl, thin, undeveloped, with a delicately cut face and shadows lying like inksmears beneath her eyes. Her womanhood was coming, and she had no strength to meet it— at her age she should have had rounded limbs and pleasing curves —she seemed to recognise this as she gazed unhappily at her angles. Her hair pleased her, for the sun was making a glory of it; there was a nameless beauty about her face that she recognised vaguely.

"I shall never marry," she sobbed. "No one ever comes here but that heavy stupid Morty. I shall be like Miss Browne in a few more years. I'm getting untidy now—no one can be tidy in clothes like these—l never care how I do my hair —what is the use when there is no one to see it? I've not been to a party or a proper picnic or a theatre like the girls in the books in all my life. I shouldn't know what to do if I did go to one. No, I shall grow just like Miss Browne, and it is all Challis' fault."

A portrait of the sweet-faced girl player hung on the wall. Hermie tore it down from its place and broke it into fragments. "I'm just tired to death of seeing you smile," she muttered.

Miss Browne came in, Miss Browne with perspiration on her face and a strand or two of her colourless hair loose. She carried an armful of Hermie's clothes from the wash. "They are a very bad colour," she said, "but we cannot blame Lizzie when there was next to no water —my dear, what is the matter?"

Hermie did not even wipe the tears from her face; she was sitting still, her hands on her knees and lei ting the salt drops trickle drearily down her cheeks.

Miss Browne took a step towards her, then paused timidly. There had never been much intimacy or confidence between them; Hermie with her innate love of daintiness and beauty and the hardness of youth despised while she pitied the poor woman.

"Is it —anything I can help—your father —Floss—you are anxious, worried?"

"Oh, no," said Hermie, '.T wasn't thinking of anyone but myself." She leaned her head back, and had a sense of pleasure in her rolling tears. "I suppose I'm not much more miserable than usual, but then I expect you are miserable—everyone is, I think." "But not in middle of the day, love," the lady help said. "Why not?" "Oh," vaguely, "there isn't time as a rule. One is so busy. It is a different thing when you go to bed." "What do you do then?" said Hermie, "when you are miserable in bed?" Miss Browne thought for a second. "I think I say my prayers," she said. "And if that does not cure you?"* "I say them again." "And if you are still miserable?" "I—l think Igo to sleep then—one is generally tired." She spoke apologetically. Hermie leaned her head still further back. "Saying prayers would not help me much," she said. "I am an atheist." "What?" screamed Miss Browne. "An atheist," said Hermie. "It .is very comfortable to be one. Yom have only to think about eating and sleeping. Oh dear!" She arose lang-uidly and administered water to Miss Brown, who was gasping alarmingly. "This room is hot," she said, "go and lie down in your own. You shouldn't have made me talk if you didn't want to hear things'—mind that bit of loose wood at the door." Miss Brown, thus dismissed, went away like a chidden child, but her eyes were full of terror, and her very knees trembled. She groped her way to the sitting-room and poured out the frightful story into Mr Cameron's ears.>

He made his own way presently to the hot cramped bed-room. Hermie had let her hair down and was sitting on the edge of the bed surveying her

poor little prettinesses tragically in the looking-glass.

Her father sat down on the bed beside her and disclaimed fatigue and headache and everything else she urged upon him.

"What is this Miss Brown tells me, little one?" he said, and almost indulgently, so young, slight and absurd she looked to be questioning eternity. Hermie twisted her wavy hair up into a hard plain knot.

"I only said I was an atheist,'- she said, and her young lip quivered and her eyes grew wild.

He put his arm round her. "How long have you been feeling like this, ChUdie?"

She burst into a passion of frightened tears.

"Since yesterday morning," she said.

"Tell me about it," lie whispered. She swalloweu a few sobs. "I'm tired of saying prayers —nothing gets better —nothing comes. It—'it's easy enough to believe in God if you live in Sydney and have water laid on — and cool days and money and a mother. But out here—oh, He can't expect us to believe in Him." "I think a few of us do," he said. "Us?" she repeated. "You don't believe anything, do you, father? I've never heard you say a word. I have thought for long enough you were an atheist too."

He took his arm away and moved to the little window—it was almost ten minutes before he turned round and come back to her.

"Child," he said, "sometimes I think my mistakes are too many for me. I have nothing to say to you. I dare not even say, forgive me. Poor little child to have come to such rocks —I should have helped you long ago. Only you see I had got in the habit of leaving these things to mother."

"Mother did not often go to church," said Hermie, discontentedly. "I don't remember her talking religion much."

"She breathed it instead," he said; "she is the best woman in the world, never forget that, Hermie. When we were first married I was full of the young University man's talk —brain at war with established doctrines. She never came over weakly to me as some women might have done, she never kept spotlessly aloof; indeed, she. conceded- me freely many of my points. But she managed to make it plain to me that all these questions mattered very little—Christ and prayer and love and doing our best, those were her rocks and the waves of dogma washing for ever on them could not move them."

"Did she ever read any of those books of yours — those on the top shelf?" whispered Hermie.

."Ah," said Cameron, "you have been reading those, have you? Oh, yes; she was never afraid to read anything that was written, but she distinguished between faith and creed. She said she did not try to explain or understand God, only to believe in Him. She is quite right. It is the hard names, the popular orthodoxies, the iron creeds, that take the soul and heart and warmth out of religion. When you were little she did nothing more than show you God as a Father, to be tenderly loved and obeyed, and gone to for refuge and comfort. She never taught you your catechism, did she, before you were old enough to understand?"

"No," said Hermie. "No, it was her way. She wanted the love of God to be a living thing to you all, a glad, warm, spontaneous thing like the love you bore us, only deeper. She would have no lines and rules and analysis of it while you were small. It was not a thing she actually spoke about very often, for she held that the continual wearisome insistence of religious talk both in books and life had cheapened itstifled the real spirit of it. But white hours find room for themselves at times—on plain Mondays and Saturdays as often as on quiet Sundays— and she had a way of making the influence of them run, clear, fresh, pleasant streams through the mudflats of life. Can you realise in any degree what it is to me to find her daughter with such thoughts, Hermie?" His voice was very low. Hermie pulled the pin from the plain, tight knob, and let all her hair hide her flushed face again.

"If—if only I had known you thought like this," she muttered. "Yes," he said, 'it is a thing that I shall never be able to put away from my mind again that I did not let you know. A man gets in the way •of keeping quiet things like these to himself, but I should not have forgotten I had children. I knew Miss Browne was a good woman, whatever her faults, and I felt that I might leave you to her. Don't think I am excusing myself." "It was- not your_fault, darling, darling," Hermie said, and clung to him; "but think how miserable we are, all of us, even poor little Floss. How can He forget us like this?" Cameron's blue eyes looked out at the blue sky. "Not to understand, only to believe. He does not lead us always through green pastures. The severe and daily discipline makes us shirk, no doubt, But we have to go on." "Oh, darling, I do love you, I do love you," wept the girl. "Tie up your hair, Childie, and we'll go down and sit among the roses—if any are still alive. lam quite strong enough to walk." He opened the door, and they went out together, and neither looked at the ,sky. But here had gathered a brave cloud host, and there another contingent came, determined, blackbrowed, strenuously fighting the long victorious sun, desperately clinging together; And over the fainting earth flashed its lights, and through the heavens tore the sudden thunder of its guns. And the battle was to it. Down came the sweet torrents of the rain, and the cracked, piteous earth lay breathlessly glad and still beneath it. You heard the calves call to the mothers, the surprised whinny of the horses seeking shelter, You saw the sheep struggling to their feet and lapping the wet grass with swollen tongues. You heard the birds making aU sorts of new little cries and noises as they flew wildly for shelter, birds, many of them, that had been born and grown to make nests for themselves, and never known the strange phenomenon of rain.

You heard the hisses and splutters of the bush fires as the evil spirit went out of them.

You saw a lad come up from them.

his beating bough still in his hand, the lines of his young, grave face all broken up, and the glad tears bursting out to meet the wall of rain that beat in his face.

You saw a small girl rushing out half dressed and heedless of the torrent for the exquisite pleasure of seeing the sheep drink. You ,saw a woman with thin, blown hair and a drab complexion saying her prayers in her bedroom.

Down where the roses were just recalled to life, Hermie was clinging to her father, both wet through with the sweet, blinding rain. "Oh, you didn't believe me, did you?" she cried, "as if I could —as if I could. It was just that the dust had got into my heart and choked me. Oh, darling, I never really meant that dreadful thing—dearest, you don't think I meant it, do you?" Her tears were gushing out in streams.

"I never believed it for one moment," he said, and kissed her and led her back to the house.

(To be continued.)