Page:The Toll of the Bush.pdf/63

race. A sound of children screaming came from the interior of the hut. Geoffrey touched his hat and was passing when the woman called to him and came down to the fence.

‘I hope you didn’t mind my sending for the things this morning,’ she said as Geoffrey approached.

She leant her arms wearily on the fence and looked steadily at him as though she derived pleasure from the act. Her face showed traces of good looks, prematurely faded; her eyes were tired and sullen. Through her imperfectly fastened bodice Geoffrey caught a glimpse of a black bruise staining her white skin.

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘We were only too glad to be able to help you—that is, I hope we were———’ and Geoffrey looked at her inquiringly.

‘I got what I sent for,’ said Mrs, Andersen, nodding. ‘I always do when I send to you. That’s why I go to you last.’

Geoffrey laughed, and the woman smiled slowly in sympathy.

‘I suppose we have got to live,’ she said, with a return of gravity. ‘At any rate we do,’ she added, the first proposition encountering a bar of doubt in her mind.

‘Of course,’ Geoffrey agreed, as though there could be no doubt at all.

Mrs. Andersen looked at him and condensed the problem of the ages in one word—‘Why?’

The answer—several of them—came out of the house ready-made and arrayed in flour-bags. Geoffrey noticed that the family patronised two brands of flour, ‘Champion’ and ‘Snowdrift,’ and