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sound for the last three hours, and she was tired of it. The coast road along which the service car had traveled from Wairiri seemed to be a road by courtesy only. The car ran for the most part along the hard sand of the seashore, only turning inland where the rocky headlands jutted out into the blue of the ocean. It was a very beautiful coast line, but very lonely too, Ann reflected. Not a house in sight anywhere. Only the sheep on the hills, and the gulls crying over the white breakers, and the wet sand, and the empty wide Pacific. And Omoana itself was little less lonely. The hotel, the post office, the store, a forlorn looking bank, a blacksmith’s forge, a low iron-roofed hall plastered with film posters, a garage, and one or two small wooden houses—all seemed practically deserted. Yet there must be human beings within the shabby wooden walls of the hotel, for a saddled horse was hitched to a post outside the window labeled “BAR,” and three dogs lay snapping at the flies in the sunshine at the horse’s heels. What should she do? Ann wondered. Walk through into the open hall-way and call for some one? Bang loudly on the door? All at once Ann’s stout little heart failed her. She’d spoken so bravely before leaving England of life in a new country; the romance of it—the adventure! Well, she’d had a certain amount of both on the voyage out. But now! A sudden wave of desolation engulfed her. Oh, to be back in the dear old ship again! The dancing, and the deck games, and faithful Bob Greenaway always in attendance!

If by some miracle Bob could materialize here and now, Ann felt that she would hurl herself into his kindly arms and agree to love, honor, and obey like a sensible girl.