while moaning: ‘Geoffrey has married a native. My son has married a savage. He could have had the pick of the County. The girl must have cast a spell over him, and one day he will inherit the Hampshire estates. Oh Horace, whatever shall we do?’ Horace the lawyer son was not to be rushed, however. He had learned to read any letter or document over several times, then to chew it over like a cow chewing the cud, and to then remain cagey about the real meaning; and so strolling easily to his mother's room he brought the smelling salts, gave them to his distressed mater and picking up the letter read it several times. Finally he looked up with a grin. ‘I may be wrong Mater Dear,’ he said, ‘But the letter is worth finishing, since you obviously never read it through,’ and the son returned the letter to his mother, who read: ‘Noti was educated for about ten years at a good Anglican Boarding School for girls and although she loves to glide about the house barefooted she adds grace to any society, and I am certain she would tower like a queen in the best society in England. Noti is also sole heiress to a vast tract of land known as the Kurangi Maniapoto block.’ Without being a lawyer the poor distressed lady read the last sentence of the letter over several times, but she could only accept its contents. Slowly the tranquilising effect of the sentence calmed the mother so that she smiled weakly and calling the maid, ordered tea; over which the lady, completely restored by the cuppa, told her son how she had always had implicit faith in Geoffrey's good judgment and that she would shortly go to New Zealand to see the lovely young wife. Which was exactly what the good lady did do; and so much did she love her daughter-in-law that she braved the up-river journeys frequently, and in fact hated to part from the young wife whose admirable but transparent charity needed the protection of a person worldly wise: since Geoffrey never at any time tried to dam the flow of his wife's generosity, to divert the stream of Maoris who sought advice or help from one who knew the Pakeha ways. Just one child, a girl named Waikura, was born to Noti. When of school age the child went to Wanganui and lived with her grandmother, who had established a lovely home on St John's Hill; after which the girl went to Boarding School. Noti had eighteen years of wonderful happiness with her Pakeha husband, and then he was drowned crossing the swollen Wanganui on horseback just above the big rapid at Okopai. At a time when it was customary for girls to be married in even the highest circles, when just out of school, Waikura, whose beauty caused all men to turn their heads and catch their breaths, was soon the reason for many male visitors at the home of her grandmother on St John's Hill where Noti was also living since Geoffrey's death. Many were the rubbertyred gigs and traps which drove up to the house, and even new-fangled motor cars chug-