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Ridiculous to have allowed herself to imagine there was any sentiment mixed up in this feeling of comradeship. Already she was looking forward very happily to visiting the cottage on the following day.

Almost every day during the week that followed, unless prevented by her duties at the homestead, Ann found some opportunity of seeing Rodney Marsh. Sometimes she only looked m for a few minutes, but on most occasions she stayed for the best part of an hour. She had taken him a varied selection of books, and found him by no means so ignorant as she had at first believed him to be. He was not a “bookish” person, but he was fond of reading, and often surprised her by his preferences. “The Nigger of the Narcissus” he read three times, and announced that it was a fine book written by a fine man. At the end of the week Ann no longer argued with herself as to her feeling for the young shepherd. If he wanted her to be his wife she knew that she would marry him.

Holmes had often told her that Marsh would find no difficulty in obtaining the managership of some station; and to her mental vision the picture of the little homestead in the country became more vivid.

But did Marsh really care for her? He valued her friendship, she felt sure, and he made it plain that he recognized she was—as he would put it—“a cut above” his associates at Omoana. Yet in this he was not disloyal to his own acquaintances. They were good enough for him—not for her. He did not discuss Mrs. Bentley beyond remarking that she was “a good sort,” but that as she’d struck up a great friendship with