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“Do you? Well, I suppose that’s what we all wished—before we saw it!”

Holmes dismissed the subject, and he and Rodney talked of other matters. The shearing—of Waring having already “cut out” at Kopu. Ann, sipping her hot tea, and nibbling her bread and butter, was thoroughly enjoying herself. But at last Holmes rose.

“I think we’d better push off.”

They were gone. And as Ann dressed and went out to see the sunrise, she felt that she knew and liked both men better since that very unconventional breakfast in the dawn.

Shearing had begun. Sitting in the school-room on the hill, one could hear from across the paddocks the beat of the engine at the woolshed, the barking of dogs, and the bleating of sheep. Men moving about in the hot sunshine amongst the dusty yards were whistling and shouting at their dogs. A thin column of smoke rose up from the camp fire near the tent of the Maori shearers. The engine stopped. That meant ten o’clock, and smoke-o for all hands. They had started at five, with an hour off for breakfast.

The little girls were restless—longing to be off across the paddocks to the shed.

“Not until eleven,” said Ann. “Then no more lessons.”

“You’re coming down too?”

“Of course I am—I’ve never seen shearing. You’ll have to show me everything.”

“Rodney and Dad have just brought in a mob of sheep. They’ll be there too.”