Chapter III (1)

The poll had been taken on a Saturday, and on Monday both the elected and defeated candidates appeared in Noonoon to return thanks.

The former came into town at the head of a long cortége of vehicles, and with the red, white, and blue parasols very prominently in evidence. The streets were hung with bunting, and at night the newly elected M.P. was lifted into a buggy in which he was drawn through the streets by youths, at the head of a glorified procession led by a brass band; and there were not only little boys covered with electioneering tickets from top to toe and yelling as they marched and waved flags, but also little girls, now equally with their brothers, electors to be. More power to them and their emancipation!

It came on to rain, so black umbrellas, big and business-like, went up by dozens around the three special ones, and became an amusing feature of the train of miscellaneous people who came to a halt within earshot of a balcony in the main street. Henderson was carried upstairs on some enthusiasts' shoulders, and when landed there followed the usual "gassating" and flattery--the re-elected member being presented with a gorgeous bouquet of red, white, and blue flowers.

A little farther up the street the Walkerites also held a "corroboree," where graceful thanks were returned by the Opposition candidate, who was overloaded with offerings of blue and white violets and narcissi, and amid great enthusiasm dragged in a buggy to the railway station.

As they came down the street, though they had the intention of giving three cheers for the victors as they passed, the rabble could not be expected to anticipate such nicety of feeling, and some young irresponsibles attempted to form a barricade across the route.

"Charge!" was then called out by some braw young Walkerites in the lead, and mild confusion followed.

I was knocked on to the wheel of Leslie Walker's buggy, from whence I was rescued by an old gentleman, himself minus his pipe and cap, but good-humouredly laughing--

"My word! aren't the other side dying hard?"

"Take care you and I do not also die hard," I replied, stepping out of the way of an idiot lad, who, dressed as a jester in Walker's colours, was sitting on a horse whose progress was blocked by the crowd, which began jibing at the rider.

Dawn, indignant at this, dashed forward like a beauteous and infuriated Queen Boadicea, her cheeks red from excitement and the winter air, and with her grandmother's flash in her eyes, exclaimed as she took the bridle rein--

"Cowards, to torment a poor fellow!"

She attempted to lead the animal through, but the torches of the band were put before it and the indispensable red, white, and blue parasols swirled in its face, till it reared and plunged frantically, catching the excited girl a blow on the shoulder with its chest. She must inevitably have been knocked down in the street and been trampled upon but for the intervention of a hand so timely that it seemed it must have been on guard.

Noonoon was by no means an architectural town, and the ugliness of its always dirty, uneven streets was now accentuated by the mud and rain, but the picture under the dripping flags shown up by the torches of the band was very pretty.

The sturdy young athlete thus triumphantly in the right place at a necessitous moment, held his precious burden with ease and delight, and though she was not in any way hurt she did not seem in a hurry to relinquish the arm so willingly and proudly protecting her. The expression on the young man's face as he bent over the beautiful girl was a revelation to some interested observers but not to me.

Oh, lucky young lady! to be thus opportunely and romantically saved from a painful and humiliating if not serious accident!

Oh, happy knight! to be thus at hand at the psychologic moment!

And where was "Dora" Eweword then?

And where was _my_ rescuer? Apparently he had forgotten that he had rescued me, or that to have done so was of moment.

Ah, neither of us were in the heyday of youth, and 'tis only during that roseate period that we extract the full enchantment of being alive, and only by looking back from paler days that we understand how intense were the joys gone by.

TWENTY-FOUR.

LITTLE ODDS AND ENDS OF LIFE.

The electioneering over, the town fell to a dulness inconceivable, and from which it seemed nothing short of an earthquake could resuscitate it. So great was the lack of entertainment that the doings of the famous Mrs Dr Tinker regained prominence, and the old complaints against the inability of the council to better the roads awoke and cried again.

Two days following Dawn's rescue from the accident, Ernest called upon me, and occupying one of the stiff chairs before the fireplace under the Gorgonean representations of Jim Clay, looked hopelessly self-conscious and inclined to blush like a schoolboy every time the door opened, but Dawn did not make her appearance. I knew he had come hoping that in averting the accident he had been able to illustrate his friendliness towards her, and that she would now meet him as of old, so that the little incident of the wash-up water could be explained and buried. At last, taking pity on the very natural young hope that was being deferred, I excused myself and went in quest of Dawn, and found her in her room sewing with ostentatious industry.

"Dawn, won't you come down and speak to Ernest, he has called to see how you are after your adventure," I said with perfect truth, though as a matter of fact he had studiously refrained from mentioning her.

"Oh, please don't ask me to go down," she implored excitedly; "you seem to have forgotten!"

"Forgotten what?"

"That dish of water," she faltered with changing colour, "and then he saved me so cleverly from being trampled on! If he had ridden over me I wouldn't have cared, as it would have made things square; but as it is, can't you understand that I'd rather _die_ than see him?" said she in the exaggerated language of the day, and burying her face in her hands.

"I can better understand that you are _dying_ to see him," I returned, pulling her head on to my shoulder; "but never mind, you'll see him some other day, and it will all come straight in time."

I forbore to press her farther, but that Ernest might not be too discouraged I gave him some splendid oranges Andrew had picked for me, and said--

"Miss Dawn kept these for you, but as she is not visible this afternoon I am going to make the presentation."

His face perceptibly brightened, and also noticeable was the brisk way he terminated his call upon learning that there was no prospect of seeing Dawn that day. I watched him bounding along the path to the bridge carrying the oranges in his handkerchief, and watched also by another pair of eyes from an upstairs window.

Carry left us during that week, and as she had now fixed her wedding-day the tax of wedding presents had to be met. Grandma, in bidding her good-bye, presented her with a generous cheque, and paid her a fine compliment.

"I wish you well wherever you go, for I never saw another young woman--unless it was meself when I was young--who could lick you at anythink."

Carry's departure put the cap on our quietude at Clay's, but soon a movement transpired to stir the stagnation.

The out-voted electors of Noonoon were so galled by their defeat that they ignored the British law under which it was their boast to live, and refused to acknowledge that the man who had been voted in by the majority was constitutionally their representative in parliament. They also failed to see that he would serve the purpose quite as well as the other man, and to publish their sentiments more fully, determined to tender Leslie Walker a complimentary entertainment of some kind, and present him with a piece of plate, not as the other side had it, in token of his defeat, but owing to the fact that he was actually the representative of Noonoon town, having in that place polled higher than his opponent. The presentation took the shape of a silver epergne. This to a man who probably did not know what to do with those he already possessed, a wealthy stranger who had contested the electorate for his own glory! Had he been a struggling townsman, who, at a loss to his business, had put up in hopes of benefiting his country, to have paid his expenses might have shown a commendable spirit, but this was such a pure and simple example of greasing the fatted sow, that even those who had supported him openly rebelled, Grandma Clay among them.

"Well, that's the way women crawl to a man because he's got a smooth tongue and a little polish," sneered Uncle Jake.

"And some of the men hadn't gumption to get the proper right to vote for their man who flew the publican's flag and truckled to the tag-rag," chuckled grandma, who was delighted to prove that this illustration of crawl had originated with the men.

Nevertheless it was decided to present the epergne at a select concert or musical evening, with Mr and Mrs Leslie Walker sitting on the platform, where the audience could gloat upon them. Dawn was asked to contribute to the programme, and relieved her feelings to me forthwith.

"The silly, crawling, ignorant fools!" she exclaimed. "The first item on the programme is a solo by Miss Clay!!!" says the chairman, "and I'll come forward and squark. 'Next item, a recitation by Mrs Thing-amebob.' Can't you just imagine it?" she said in inimitable and exasperated caricature from the folds of her silk kimono. "Good heavens! to give a man like that an amateur concert like ours! Do you know, they say he is the best amateur tenor in Australia, and his wife was a comic opera singer before she married--so a girl was telling me where I get my singing lessons. You'd think even the galoots of Noonoon wouldn't be so leather-headed but they'd know their length well enough not to make fools of themselves in this way! _I_ know; why can't they know too? They like these things themselves, and think others ought to like them too. What do they want to be licking Walker's boots at all for? We all voted and worked for him; that was enough! It will just show you the way people will crawl to a bit of money! Oh dear, how Walker must be grinning in his sleeve! I _won't_ sing for them!"

But she was not to escape so easily. A member of the committee asked grandma "Would she allow her granddaughter to contribute a solo?"

"Of course!" said the old lady. "Ain't I getting her singing lessons to that end?" and down went the girl's name on the programme, and there was war in the Clay household on that account.

"I can't sing yet," protested Dawn. "I can't sing in the old style, and can't manage the new style yet."

"Rubbish!" said grandma, who could not be got to grasp the intricacies of voice production. "What am I payin' good money away for? It's near three months now, and nothing to show for it yet. If you can't sing now, you ought to give it best at once; and if you can't sing a song for Mr Walker, and show him you've got a better voice than some, I think it common-sense to stop your lessons at the end of the quarter."

"My teacher wouldn't let me sing."

"And who's the most to do with you, your teacher or me, pray? Who's _he_ to say when you shan't sing or the other thing?" and thus she decided the point; but Dawn each night dwelt upon the trouble, while I sought to comfort her.

"It is best to sing to the people who know all about singing. They will see you have a good voice and appreciate it far more than could the ignorant."

A fortnight had to elapse before the date of the concert, and during that time Carry's successor arrived in the form of a stout "general," as Dawn averred she had sufficient companion in me, and that a kitchen woman was preferable to a lady help.

The pruning of a portion of the vineyard, which had been delayed by electioneering matters till now, also took place during this time, and Andrew and Uncle Jake, when working in the far corner, made the extraordinary discovery of an odontologic gold plate of the best quality and in perfect order. The find created quite a sensation.

As grandma said, it bore evidence that some one had been stealing grapes during the season, for any person legitimately in the vineyard would have instituted a search for such a valuable piece of property, and for a person who could afford such a first-class gold plate to steal grapes, showed what _some people_ were. It did indeed, for this person had been wont to clandestinely enter her premises to perpetrate a far lower grade of crime than pilfering her grapes or destroying her vineyard. The incident trickled into the columns of 'The Noonoon Advertiser,' in conjunction with the facetious remark that the invader would have had to take a lot of grapes to compensate him for what he had lost; and it was further stated that the article being useless except to him--its size bespoke it a man's--for whom it had been modelled, he could have it upon giving satisfactory proof that he was the owner.

Needless to say, Mr Pornsch did not claim his property, and this souvenir was the last we heard of him. Andrew took it to Mr S. Messre, dentist, the man who had seemed to consider it unprofessional that to fill my teeth should take time, and with him the lad bargained that in return for the plate he was to tinker up those teeth whose aching I had allayed with the carbolic acid prescribed for me by the other dentist.

Dawn and I chuckled in secret, sent a copy of 'The Noonoon Advertiser' to Carry, and remarked that it was an ill wind that blew no one any good.

During the fortnight preceding the concert, Ernest Breslaw called at Clay's several times to see me, and saw me unattended by any extras in the form of a beautiful young girl, for Dawn blushingly avoided him. He had to fall back on such outside skirmishing as rowing me on the river, and though there was no longer an impending election to furnish him with excuse for loitering in Noonoon, he did not speak of deserting it in a hurry. He had reached that degree of amorous collapse when he could manage to shadow the haunts of his desired young lady regardless of circumstances, and grandma began to suspect that his attentions had a little more staying power than those of the week-end admirer.

Seeing that the "red-headed mug" had reappeared, in the hope of permanently extirpating him "Dora" Eweword was anxious to announce his engagement, but with threats of immediate extermination if he should so much as give a hint of it, Dawn kept him in abeyance, and altogether behaved so erratically that Andrew candidly published his belief that she had gone "ratty."

Ernest proffered himself as our escort to the Walker presentation, but Eweword having previously secured Dawn, Breslaw had to be satisfied with my company. I had already presented Andrew with a ticket, and as I could not now discard him, I resolved to ignore the injunctions to be found in etiquette books, and accept attentions from two gentlemen at once. Thus it happened that I, at the despised grey-haired stage, sat in state with a most attentive cavalier on either hand, while handsome young ladies sat all alone.

We had entered September, and the early flowers had lifted their heads on every hand in this valley, where they grew in profusion, and that evening were in evidence at women's throats, in men's coats, and in young girls' hair. The stage was a bower of heavenly scented bloom, and many among the audience held bouquets the size of a broccoli in readiness for presentation to the guests of the evening.

Ernest was holding the pony, which was restive, while Andrew buckled her to the sulky, when Dawn came upon the scene after the concert and presented me with a huge bunch of flowers, and Eweword also got his nag ready for home-going. Dawn had not met Ernest since the night in the street, and even now affected not to notice him, so thinking it time to take the situation by the horns, I said--

"Here is Mr Ernest; you didn't see him because he was standing in the shade."

Thus encouraged, he came forward and sturdily put out his hand, and Dawn could not very well fail to observe that, as it was of substantial build and held where the light shone full on it, so she was constrained to meet it with her own, and received, as she afterwards confessed, a lingering and affectionate pressure.

It was not of Ernest, however, but of Mrs Walker that she talked that night as we prepared for rest, with our washhand basins full of violets that had been crowded out of the quantity given to the defeated candidate's wife.

"Fancy being lovely like she is! After looking at her I've given up all hope. I suppose all I'm fit for is Mrs Eweword--Mrs 'Dora' Eweword; do my housework in the morning and take one of these sulkies full of youngsters for a drive in the afternoon like all the other humdrum, tame-hen, _respectable_ married women! It's a sweet prospect, isn't it?" she said vexedly, throwing herself on the bed.

"Don't be absolutely absurd! Look in the glass and you will see a far more beautiful face, and one possessed of other qualities that make for success."

"Oh, nonsense, you only say that to put me in a good humour. But how do women find such good matches as Leslie Walker?--that's what I want to know," she continued.

"Either by being beautiful or using strategic ability in the great lottery. Mrs Walker probably used both these accomplishments. You can achieve similar results by means of the first without the necessity of developing the second. Silly girl, marry Leslie Walker's step-brother, Ernest Breslaw, and if you do not live happily ever after it will not be because you have not been furnished with a better opportunity than most people."

She did not remark the relationship I thus divulged, showing that Ernest's confidences must have included it.

"A girl can't _make_ a man marry her," was all she said. "I don't know how to use strategy, and wouldn't crawl to do such a thing if I could."

"Neither would I, but if I loved a man and saw that he loved me, I'd secretly hoist a little flag of encouragement in some place where he could see it," I made reply.

TWENTY-FIVE.

"LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM."

Next morning was gloriously spring-like; the violets raised their heads in thick mats of blue and white in every available cranny of the garden and other enclosures where they were allowed to assert themselves, while other plants were opening their garlands to replace them, and the air breathed such a note of balminess that Ernest came to invite me to a boat-ride.

To the practised eye there were certain indications that he hoped for Dawn's company too, but this was out of the question, as under ordinary circumstances it is rarely that girls in Dawn's walk of life can go pleasuring in the forenoon without previous warning, or what would become of the half-cooked midday dinner? So we set out by ourselves, and as the boat shot out to the middle of the stream between the peach orchards, just giving a hint of their coming glory, and past the erstwhile naked grape-canes, not cut away and replaced by a vivid green, the rower made a studiedly casual remark, "Your friend Miss Dawn spoke to me again at last. I wonder why on earth she threw that dish of water on me; did she ever say that she had anything against me?"

"No. If you could be a girl for half an hour you'd know that the man to whom she shows most favour is frequently the one she most despises, while he whom she ignores or ill-treats is the one she most warmly regards."

"How on earth is that?"

"Oh, a species of shyness like your own, which makes you talk freely of Dawn and Ada Grosvenor, because you have no particular interest in them, whereas there is some name you guard jealously from me," I cunningly replied.

"Is it true that Miss Dawn is engaged to Eweword? If she is let me know in time to send her a wedding present. I'd like to, because she's your friend," he said with such elaborate unconcern that I had difficulty in suppressing a smile. His step-brother, the dilettante, would never have been so clumsily transparent in a similar case.

"Nonsense; she's as much engaged to you as to him," I said reassuringly, and that was all that passed between us on that subject. He energetically confined our conversation to the lovely odour from the lucerne fields we were passing on the river-bank, but I was not surprised that the afternoon's post brought Dawn a letter that smothered her in blushes, and plunged her in a gay abstraction too complete for either Uncle Jake or Andrew to penetrate.

When we were once more in our big room, commanding a view of the Western mail with its cosy lights twinkling across the valley, she extended me the privilege of perusing one of the simplest and most straightforward avowals of love from a young man to a maiden it has been my delight to encounter.

"DEAR MISS DAWN,--You will be very surprised at receiving
such a letter from me, but I hope you will not be offended.
I have loved you since the first day I saw you, but have
kept it so well to myself that no one has suspected it,
perhaps not even yourself. Will you be my wife? I love you
better than life, and am willing to wait any number of years
up to ten, if you can only give me hope of eventually
winning you. I do not expect you to care for me at once, but
if you can give me hope that you do not dislike me I shall
be content to wait. You are so beautiful and good, I am
afraid to ask you to marry me, but I would try hard to make
you happy, and being in a position to live comfortably, you
could continue any studies you like." Here followed a most
business-like and lucid statement of his affairs, and the
ending--"Please do not keep me waiting long for a reply, and
let me know if I am to interview your grandmother. I am sure
I can satisfy her in regard to my position and
antecedents.--Yours devotedly,

"R. ERNEST BRESLAW."

He was honest. Not fearing that his income might tempt a girl of Dawn's or indeed any other's station, he had in no way attempted to test her affection ere mentioning it. After the manner of his type--one of the best--he would place complete reliance where he loved, and feel sure of the same in return.

"Good heavens! has he really all that money?" she exclaimed.

"So I believe."

"I'd be able to live the life I want, then. Learn to sing, have lovely dresses, and travel about. I'm not thinking only of his money, but don't you think people who marry on nothing are fools and selfish? A woman who marries a man who is only able to keep her and her children in starvation is a fool, and a man who wants a woman to suffer what wives have to, and drudge in poverty, is a selfish brute--that's what I've always thought. As for gassing about love when there's no comfort to keep it alive, that's about as foundationless as we, always being supposed to think men our superiors, even the ones a blind idiot could see are inferior."

"Are you going to marry him?"

"I want to, but what on earth am I to do with 'Dora' Eweword?"

"Break his heart to keep Ernest's together?"

"Break _his_ heart! It's the style to break, isn't it? He can have Dora Cowper or Ada Grosvenor, they both want him. If grandma got wind of the situation though, she'd put my pot on properly. She'd carry on like fury, and let me have neither of them--that would be the end of it. I can't make out why I fooled with that 'Dora' at all. I'll write and ask Ernest to give me a week;" and with her characteristic promptitude she sat down, and favoured a style as unadorned as that of the knight himself.

"DEAR MR ERNEST,--Your letter received. I care for you, but
cannot give you a definite answer at once. There may be
obstacles in the way of accepting your kind offer; if you
will give me a week to consider matters, I will answer you
definitely then.--Yours with love,

DAWN."

As she got into bed she said with a happy giggle, "He says he loved me from the first day he saw me, and you thought he only came to see you!"

"Well, my dear, you can't expect people whose hearts are broken from over-work, and whose hair is grey from want of love, to be as quick as beautiful young ladies whose affairs have come to a happy head with a splendid young knight;" and what I inwardly thought was, that at all events I had discovered the knight's symptoms long before he had done so.

"Would you like Mr Ernest and me to marry?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't object," I laconically replied.

"Well, I'll marry him as soon as ever he likes if I can get rid of 'Dora.' I'll see 'Dora' and see if I can do it without a rumpus first, but if he hasn't got sense to be quiet, well, I won't give in without a fight. Ernest mightn't like it if he knew, but I bet he will have to keep dark about worse things on his part if I only knew,--he's different to ninety-nine per cent of men if he hasn't," she said as she opened the French lights wider to the crisp breath of scented night and blew out the lamp.

"You don't mind his hair being red now, do you?" I maliciously inquired in the darkness, and though she feigned sleep I knew that owing to a delightful wakefulness another beside myself heard the splendid music of the trains that night. The style of her breathing told that she was still awake some hours later when the old moon climbed high and came shining, shining down the valley, divided in two by its noble river, and laid out in orchard and agricultural squares. The great silver light outlined the glorious hills that walled the west away from the little towns and villages, and here and there a gleaming white cluster of tombstones bespoke the graveyards where slept the early pioneers and the folk who had followed them, and which one by one, as opening buds or withered stalks, were settling their last earthly score. The little homesteads lay royally, peacefully free from danger of molestation amid their wealth of trees and vines. Cottages raised on piles, and vain in the distinction of small protruding gables, pretentiously called bay windows, and with keys rusting for want of use in the cheap patent door-locks, were quickly superseding the earlier dwellings. These squat old cots generally had thresholds higher than the floors; their home-made slab doors knew no fastening but a latch with a string unfailingly on the outside day and night, and with their beetling verandahs and tiny box skillions, were crouchingly hard set upon the genial plain.

TWENTY-SIX.

"OFF WITH THE OLD."

Dawn was not a procrastinator, so she lost no time in sending Eweword a message to meet her next night at eight at the corner of the Gulagong Road for the purpose of a private talk.

She was going to take something to Mrs Rooney-Molyneux and the baby as an excuse to be abroad at that hour of the night, and requested me to accompany her, so that she would not be saddled with Andrew as protector. We set out immediately after tea, and had time for a chat with Mrs Rooney-Molyneux about her son. Both were enjoying good health, thanks to the opportune arrival of a well-to-do sister, and the fact that, in honour of an heir to his name, the father had lately abstained from alcoholic drinks, and made an occasional pound by writing letters for people.

We had some trouble to dissuade him from escorting us home, but emerged at last without him, and within a few minutes of eight o'clock.

The cloudless, breezeless night, though a little chilly, was heavy with the odours of spring and free from the asperity of frost. The only sounds breaking its stillness were the trains passing across the long viaduct approaching the bridge. The vehicles which met from the two roads--the Great Western, leading in from Kangaroo, and the Gulagong, coming from the thickly-populated valley down the river-banks--had gone into town earlier for the Saturday night promenade, and we practically had to ourselves the broad highway, showing white in the soft starlight.

I walked behind Dawn, and she, having found Eweword, who had been first at the tryst, they came back towards the river a few hundred yards and stopped behind some shrubbery, while I took up a place on the other side of it, as directed beforehand by this very business-like young person, to act as witness in case of future trouble.

"Well, Dawn, what has turned up?" said the young man after a pause.

"There's something that might explain the situation better than a lot of talk."

Claude, alias "Dora" Eweword, struck a match, and upon discovering the fragments of his engagement-ring in the piece of paper she had handed him, was silent for a minute or two, and then said--

"Dawn, so you want it to be all off. I knew that this long while, and have been mustering pluck to say so, but it seems you have got in before me."

"Perhaps you were going to say you were pulling my leg like you did with Dora Cowper?"

"No, I was not," and his tone was exceedingly manly. "I was going to say that, much as I care, I'd rather let you go free than hold you to your agreement when I saw you didn't care for me."

"You were mighty smart!"

"No, I'm only a dunce, but even a dunce can liven up sufficiently when he's in love to see whether his sweetheart cares for him or not, and you didn't take much pains to hide the state of affairs," he said with a rueful laugh. "I know enough about girls to know when they really care."

"Practice, like," said Dawn.

"You can say that if you like," he gravely replied.

"Well, things were rather mixed, but now I know what I want."

"And that you don't want me?" he interposed.

"Well, you can marry Ada Grosvenor or Dora Cowper."

"We can leave that to the future; it doesn't enter into this question at all," he said with a dignity that made the girl ashamed of herself. "There will be no difficulty about my marrying, the main thing is whether you are all right. It's easier for a man than a girl if he does make a hash of it."

"Oh, Claude, don't be so good and generous, or you'll make me mad because I'm not going to have you after all."

"Good and generous! Nonsense! I'm only doing what any decent fellow would do; you'd do as much and more for me if things were reversed," he said, taking her hand. "Great Scott, what sort of a crawler did you take me for? Did you think I'd cut up nasty about it? Surely you knew I'd wish you well even if you were not for me; but won't you tell me who it is that has put my light out?"

"Can't you guess?"

"Well, I suppose it's--"

"The red-headed mug," put in Dawn.

"Yes, I saw it all along, but that night in the street finished matters. I knew my chances were as dead as a door-nail after that. You only took me because something went out of gear between you, and that's why you made me keep it dark."

"Oh, I don't want to say that, Claude."

"No, but I'm saying it; and now, is there anything else I can do for you except wish you luck?"

"Only promise not to let grandma or any one know."

"Did you think it necessary to tell me that. I'd not be likely to howl about my set-back. You needn't fear. I'll act with common-sense, and pull through. I won't drown myself and haunt you, or any of that sort of business," he said cheerfully.

"Oh, thank you more than I can say," she exclaimed enthusiastically; "I hope you'll soon find some one better than I--some one as good as yourself. Good-bye!"

"Well, Dawn, I wish you joy anyhow, and good luck to the fellow who has got the best of me. He seems an alright sort from what I can make out, and will be able to give you everything you want. Good-bye!" He drew her to him, and as she did not resist, kissed her warmly on the cheek, and let her go. He wanted to see her to her gate, but she dismissed him, and he walked away through the spring night whistling a cheery air. When he was safely gone I came out from hiding, and taking Dawn's arm moved homewards.

The girl was weeping, but so softly that I was not aware of it till her warm tears fell on my hand.

Oh, the never-ending fret and fume of being! When it is not discarded love or jealousy that is agitating the human bosom, it is unsatisfied ambition, the worry of parental responsibility, or loneliness and regret that one has never tasted them. The past--what has it been? The future--what will it be? The present--what does it matter? but a thousand curses on its pin-pricks, wounding like sword-thrusts, and which all must endure!

"Oh dear, I wish he hadn't been so nice," sobbed the girl. "He has made me feel so ashamed that I don't think I'm fit to marry Ernest! I wish he had been nasty to me, and then I wouldn't have cared. But you don't think he cares, do you? Listen to him whistling so merrily!"

"It is not those who whine loudest who feel most."

"But men don't really have any feelings in this sort of thing, do they?"

"Feeling is not peculiar to any section or sex of the community, but to a percentage of all humanity. This is my belief, but I cannot attempt to judge which feel and which do not."

"Who would have dreamt of him being so sweet-natured about it?"

"Nobility of character and unselfishness are also traits we cannot find in any set place."

"I wish I hadn't been such a cat. I can't forgive myself."

I smiled happily as Eweword's action bespoke a character more in keeping with his imposing physique than that betrayed when he had vulgarly spoken of pulling a girl's leg. That had been like seeing a beautiful house occupied by nothing but poachers, and I loved humanity, so that it always hurt to see even the meanest individual do less than their best.

"Well, cheer up," I said. "Take care not to similarly transgress again. We all are constantly committing regrettable actions, but so long as we are careful not to repeat them we may hope to make some headway."

So the knight received a favourable reply, and the man supplanted by him went another way.

TWENTY-SEVEN.

"One might think better of marriage if one's married friends
would not confide in one so much."--_Reflections of a
Bachelor Girl._

Mrs Martha Clay proved a little obstreperous in regard to Ernest Breslaw filling the position of grandson-in-law.

"You always get what you don't want," said she; "an' that's why one of the same class as treated me daughter so shocking is now to be pesterin' me for me grandchild in the same way. A girl of the decent class wants to look a long time before she leaps with one of them swells. They just take to a girl out of their own click out of the contrariness of human nature, and then by-and-by give 'em a dog's life. I know there's bad in all classes, but them upstarts have so much more licence to be up to bad capers,--that's where it comes in. And anyhow I ain't breakin' me neck to have Dawn married. None of my people ever had any trouble to get married, an' she can wait a bit an' look round an' see if this feller can stand the test of waitin'," concluded the old dame, with the light of conflict in her steel-blue eye.

Fortunately I was able to bring forward a seductive statement of the case. Walker--the man who had made the money for Breslaw and his step-brother--had been a grand level-headed old labourer, and though his sons had been educated in the great English schools, they were not far removed from honest utilitarian folk, and owing to this, and in conjunction with Dawn, when her real name was divulged,--being a daughter of one of the "old families," to wit, the Mudeheepes of Menangle, the old dame consented to be reconciled.

Now that the oppression of Carry had been removed, Mrs Bray came over and beamed upon us in her usual inspiriting way.

The electioneering gossip having died out, she reopened the old budget concerning the misdoings of the Noonoon aristocracy, and once more the name of Mrs Tinker figured so largely on the bill that I deeply regretted my inability to encounter this much-discussed individual.

However, when Dawn flung into the quiet pool the bomb of her approaching wedding with one of the best "catches" of New South Wales, all other topics faded into insignificance, and every woman who had the slightest acquaintance with the bride-elect called on her to warn her against the horrors to be discovered after she had irrevocably taken the contemplated step in the dark.

As Dawn was going to take it speedily, they were very enthusiastic and unanimous in their evidence against the married state under present conditions, and the thoughtful student of life on listening to the testimony of these women of the respectable useful class, supposed to be comfortably and happily married, will know that notwithstanding the great epoch of female enfranchisement the workers for the cause of women have yet no time for rest.

Dawn was so visibly worried by the revelations made to her in the most natural way, that grandma grew concerned and published her mind on the subject.

"Women ought to hold their tongues and let young girls come to things gradual. To have it thrust upon them sudden is too much of a eye-opener for them. The way women tell how their husbands treat them nowadays is surprisin'. We all know that with the best of men marriage ain't a path of roses, but in my day women kep' it to theirselves. They suffered it in silence and thought it was the right thing, but they're getting too much sense now; and perhaps all this cryin' out against it will be a means to an end, for a grievance can't be remedied till it's aired, that's for certain," said she.

Mrs Bray was in great form during those days, and though her assertions frequently lacked logic, and betrayed in her the very shortcomings which she railed against in men, nevertheless I liked her, for she blurted out that with which the little quiet woman rules by keeping it in the background, well hidden under seeming humility.

"Look here, Dawn," said she on one of these occasions, "when you get a home of your own, take my advice and don't never let no other woman in it. You can't, seein' what men are. There's no trustin' none of them, and if you think you can you'll find yourself sold. And try soon as ever you're married to get something into your own hands, as a married woman is helpless to earn her livin'; and once you have any children you're right at the mercy of a man, and if he ain't pleased with you in every way you're in a pretty fix, because the law upholds men in every way. If you don't feel inclined to be their abject slave they can even take your children from you, and what do you think of that? It shows we ain't got the vote none too soon, I reckon! I'm not sayin' that you'll get that kind of a crawler; some of them is good,--a jolly sight better than some of the women,--but the most, when you come to live with them, is as hard as nails. They don't know how to be nothing else. They never know what it is to be quite helpless and dependent, so what do they care. They just glory and triumph over women bein' under them, because they know there's nothing to bring them down, and you want to set your wits to get some hold on a man,--he has plenty on you by law and everything else,--get some property or something in your name so that he can't make a dishcloth of you altogether. Bein' rich you'll have a somewhat easier time, but it's when you've got mountains of work, when you ain't feelin' as strong as Sandow for it, an' have one child at your skirts an' another in your arms, an' your husband to think women ain't intended for nothink better,--that this is God's design for 'em, like most men do,--it's then that married life ain't the heaven some young girls think it's goin' to be. This ain't a description of no uncommon case but among them all around you, and supposed to be the fortunate ones. I think girls want warnin', so they ain't goin' into it with their eyes shut."

The picture painted by this lady was duplicated by sadder pictures of the small worn type, and some weeks of this brought us to advanced spring and a bride-to-be so worried and unhappy that she had lost her appetite and the roses from her cheeks, and grew visibly thinner.

Ernest, who managed to snatch a little time from worshipping his bride-elect wherein to superintend the furnishing of his house, was exceedingly sensitive that his affianced should look so perceptibly miserable.

"Do you think she doesn't care for me, and would like to be released? I'd rather die than marry her if she doesn't want me," he would say, sometimes with haughtiness and more often with anger. "Good gracious! I don't know why she thinks I'm going to belong to the criminal class. Goodness knows, if I were to judge her the same way there are plenty wives would scare even a Hottentot from matrimony, and if I were to express to Dawn any fears of her being similar, I bet you'd hear of our engagement coming to a sudden death. You seem to understand her better than I do, so say a good word for me if you can."

My opinion of him being so high, saying a word in his favour gave me delight, and I took the first opportunity of saying a good many. At the end of one day, after Dawn had been subjected to a particularly gruesome account of what she might expect, I found her face downwards on her bed, weeping bitterly, and elicited--

"I'm going to tell Ernest to-morrow that I won't marry him. It's too terrible--they all tell you the same. I'd rather earn my living in some other way while I'm able. I'd rather throw up the thing now when most of my trousseau is ready than go on if one quarter of what they say is true. I'm not one of those fools who think life is going to turn out something special for me. Before these women were married I suppose they thought their husbands were going to be kings, but see how they have panned out, and why should I expect any better?"

Time had arrived to take the subject in both hands, so I gripped it firmly.

"You must be thankful to gain one point at a time," I said, beginning with the lightest end of my argument. "A little while since you feared you were fated for the life of those around--household drudgery, with an occasional sulky drive in the afternoon; now that you have escaped that prospect you are haunted by worse possibilities. No doubt you hear some saddening and deplorable stories, for some of the laws relating to marriage are degrading, and the lot of the married woman in the working class where she is wife, mother, cook, laundress, needlewoman, charwoman, and often many other things combined, is the most heartbreakingly cruel and tortured slavery; but you are escaping the probability of such a purgatorial existence. Take comfort in knowing that a great percentage of men are infinitely superior to the laws under which they live, because law is determined by public opinion, and though it restrains and modifies public behaviour it will not mould private character. Law is shaped for the masses, but there is a small percentage of individuals in either sex who are superior to any workable law, and I think Ernest Breslaw is one of these."

"Do you?" she said, sitting up eagerly. "Would you marry him without any fear if you were me?"

"I would--right at once. In spite of all its shortcomings I have a profound belief that not woman, as the poet has it, but all humanity--

'Holds something sacred, something undefiled,
Some quenchless gleam of the celestial light.'"

The rain that was temporarily washing the perfume from the flowers pattered against the window-panes and accentuated the silence, till I added--

"I will tell you my history some day, so that you may see that when I have belief in my fellows how little reason you have to fear. I have been an actress, you know."

"Yes; Ernest told me."

"Well, I'll tell you about it one day." I did not mention that I had expressly requested Ernest to keep my past a secret. However, I was not displeased that he had been unable to do so. If a man of his inexperience, and in the zenith of his first overwhelming passion, had been able to keep such a secret in the teeth of his love's wheedling, he would have proved himself of the stuff to make an ambassadorial diplomat, but not of the calibre to be the affectionate, domesticated husband, having no interests of which his wife might not be cognisant--the only character to whom I could without misgiving entrust the hot-headed Dawn.

TWENTY-EIGHT.

LET THERE BE LOVE.

I so nearly "pegged out" with an attack that fell to my lot a little time after the election, that Dr Smalley considered it advisable to summon Dr Tinker to a consultation, but sad to say I was too comatose to have become acquainted with the husband of the famous Mrs Tinker, whose individuality afforded considerable interest, because it was very conspicuous when surrounded by the neutrality of life in Noonoon. However, with the aid of some "powltices" constructed by Grandma Clay and energetically applied by Mrs Bray, and because my hour had not yet come, against the time when we slid into a splendid October I was tottering about once more.

During my time of confinement the old valley had put on its finishing touches of spring glory. Only a few golden oranges now remained on the trees, and amid the bright green leaves were thick clusters of waxy bloom. The perfume from them was heavenly, and sometimes almost too powerful after the sun had toppled behind the great level-browed range which, viewed from the plain, guarded the west of the valley of Noonoon like a mighty wall. Some of the land had been cultivated for a century without attention to artificial renewal of its fertility, but still it gave forth a wondrous variety and wealth of vegetation. The widespreading cedars hung out their scented bloom like heliotrope flags amid surrounding greenery of pine, plane, poplar, and loquat, and the peach and apricot orchards contributed banks of their delicate flowers, which in the glory of their massed bloom could have out-Japanned Japan. Along the lanes, where their stones had been thrown, they sprang up and bloomed and bore liberally; roses of many kinds and colours clambered up verandah posts and peeped over fences; the garden plots were like compressed bouquets; the brilliant, graceful, and exquisitely perfumed pink oleanders grew wild in the fields; and altogether the vale of melons had graduated to a valley of flowers.

The days had stretched out so that the mail from the far West trundled down the mountains in time to cross the queer old bridge across the Noonoon at daybreak, and the first beams of morning turned its windows to gold as the waking flowers were lifting their dew-drenched heads and the soft white mists were dispersing themselves betimes from the plains dotted with ramshackle little homes and cut into squares by barbed-wire fences. The weather had warmed, so that the fashionables' week-end exit to the cool Blue Mountains had begun; and the youngsters near the railway line sometimes left their play and stood agape in the soft twilight to watch the governor's car, painted in a strikingly different colour to all the others and emblazoned with the British coat of arms, go by.

Uncle Jake, a hired man, and Andrew were very busy on the farm, and we none the less engaged in the house, where every article of furniture was made a receptacle for drapery and haberdashery, and where the wedding was the only subject. It so often gave Andrew the "pip" that his constitution must have been seriously impaired by such frequent attacks of this complaint.

In those days Dawn was too engrossed to take me for drives, and Ernest too occupied to pull me on the historic stretch of water running like the moats of old beside his lady's castle, so that Ada Grosvenor, in her office of doing good to all with whom she came in contact, stepped into the breach, and sought to aid my recovery by taking me for gentle exercise.

It was one day when we had driven east from Noonoon that she remarked--

"It's a wonder that Mr Breslaw would care for Dawn's style when he moves in such a smart set. She is a handsome girl, which covers a multitude of sins in that respect, but still she is very downright, and--and, well, doesn't quite conform to the rules of refinement."

I only smiled, and waited till the pony's head was turned for home, when I covered the necessity for reply by admiring the incomparable panorama before us. From the altitude we had reached on the Sydney road, we could see above the unbroken line of the horizon west from Noonoon town, and the Blue Australian Mountains stretched across the view in an endless succession of round-topped peaks painted in their matchless cerulean tints, which, near the end of day, were royal in their splendour. For a hundred miles they reigned supreme before the fringe of the endless plains was reached--peak after peak, gorge on gorge, tier upon tier of beetling walls of rock, disclosing dim shadowy gullies clothed with greenery and ferns where abounded cascades of water and dewy springs in romantic and unrivalled solitude. The sun, surrounded by a gorgeous pageant of flame and gold, rested his chin on one of the peaks as though well pleased with the glowing snowless scene that his offices had in part created, and lingered a moment ere giving it up to the eager night. She sent her forerunners,--twilight, which paled the wondrous blues, and dusk, that left the mountains shadowy and indistinct, when the lady of darkness herself rubbed them right out of the great canvas, and left it no coloured beauty but the gleam of the far stars overhead and the tiny man-made lights below, which, showing from the windows of the little homesteads creeping up the mountain-sides, twinkled like points between earth and sky.

Miss Grosvenor made no further comment regarding Dawn's probable inability to rise to the demands of smart society. Only inexperience had caused her to make any. Ernest fluttered in the smart set; he and I were familiar with it; Miss Grosvenor was not, therefore we were disillusioned and she was not.