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that the head-shepherd had won just over four hundred pounds.

“I’m afraid the young fool will be sitting up till all hours gambling at Omoana tonight. Mrs. Bentley plays a pretty stiff game of poker, I believe. Well, I hope he’ll have something—beyond a bad head—to remind him of his win in the morning.”

So that was where Rodney Marsh would be this evening! Gambling with Mrs. Bentley and a few choice spirits at the “pub,” while Ann herself was dancing at the Omoana Hall only a few yards or so away!

“Well, what does it matter to me?” she asked herself impatiently. “I know that such things happen. That’s his idea of life and happiness. We’re not all built alike.” But she was conscious of a small sharp stab of repret. He was so strong, so fearless, and so handsome. Surely too fine a man to waste his glowing youth in such a futile way. And though she enjoyed the dance, the thought of Rodney lay on her mind like a little shadow which might rise at any moment to dim her pleasure.

Vera again occupied a seat in Waring’s car on the drive in to Omoana—‘to open gates for him’—but as he was going on to Kopu after the dance, she would be returning home with her husband and Ann.

Apparently the dance was a community affair, the men having hired the hall and provided the pianist—a half-caste Maori woman who usually played for “the pictures”—and the women having brought the supper of sandwiches, cake and fruit.

Ann, like all the other girls and young married women, suffered from no, lack of partners. There were at least a dozen men too many. Though programs