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hoped he wouldn’t come often to Tirau. He was staying tonight, but leaving early in the morning. He had told her he was beginning his mustering next day for the shearing at Kopu.

Ann dozed for an hour or two, only to wake perfectly convinced that for the rest of the night she would sleep no more. She struck a match, and looked at her watch. Well, it was nearly three, and the night was over. Why not get up and see the day break over the dew-wet paddocks and the dim quiet hills? She loved the dawn, but she was usually too sleepy and too lazy to leave her bed at sunrise. Now she would have the mystery of the waking world all to herself, and she would see this new strange land in a new and lovely way. Suddenly a longing possessed her to watch the sun come up from the sea. How wonderful the line of foaming breakers rolling in from the wide Pacific would look in the mysterious dawn. It was less than two miles beyond the woolshed and the river to the beach. She could cross the swing bridge down by the sheep yards, and walk in the pale light of the coming day across the paddocks to the sandhills, and the sea.

She rose and dressed, and passed out without a sound across her veranda into the garden. The stars were still bright, and there was a faded moon. A little breeze moved through the trees. Surely the dawn was late in breaking? And then suddenly Ann remembered that her watch had been put forward to station time, which was an hour ahead of town time. Only about two o’clock then, instead of three! How stupid of her! She had rounded the front of the house, and was on the eastern side when this realization came to her. She stopped. What should she do? Return