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score of hills; in—and his heart-beats quickened as he called up the figure of the young mistress, moving everywhere with her light step, like the spirit of Peace herself.

Wairangi—‘the heavenly waters.’ Such a splendour of light lay over the scene that he might well have been gazing into Paradise itself. There were rest and content. The memory of the resplendent glories of summer came to him whispering that there also was delight. How could he hesitate? What was it that bade him pause, his feet on the threshold, his will fainting to be there? Was it pride that could not brook the thought of asking so much and offering so little? All his life he had eaten the bread of dependence, but love had sweetened it to his lips. Would it not continue to do so? Was it doubt as to how his advances would be received? Doubt was there, but if it influenced him at all it was towards its own elimination.

The Bald Hill was the highest point in the settlement. It was so named on account of the landslips which had denuded its summit of soil and left the white inhospitable clay exposed. The settler to whom it had been allotted was supposed to be recompensed for its barrenness by an increased depth of soil in the hollows into which Geoffrey now descended, but there were no evidences of any attempt having been made to utilise this compensation—supposing it existed—beyond what were furnished by a hut roofed with kerosene tin and a small enclosure mainly choked with weeds. A slipshod youngish woman stood in the open doorway, watching him with the frank, sexless interest which is due to the presence of another human being of the same