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time Ann’s vanity was flattered by his badly concealed annoyance.

The gale blew itself out, and soon afterwards spring was definitely left behind and summer came with a rush. The ordinary routine of station life was resumed, polo practice re-commenced, and it seemed as though the bad luck following upon the shearing was forgotten.

Ann and the little girls were picnicking on the beach. They had started off directly after lunch, Jo riding on a sheepskin strapped on to her pony’s back, and Ann mounted on the well-behaved station hack Holmes had allotted to her. She was not yet secure enough to look after anything beyond herself, so Biddy carried the billy and cakes for tea in a sack—a pikau the Maoris called it—slung across the front of her saddle. They tethered the horses in the shade of some karaka trees, undressed in the shelter of a little patch of bush growing beside the creek, and then dashed across the heavy log-strewn sand to the foaming margin of the sea. It was a perfect afternoon. Hot sunshine, blue sky and sea, white tumbling waves, and gulls wheeling and crying above the headlands, and the wet firm sand near the water’s edge. Glorious just to be alive on a day like this! The surf was not too heavy; only sufficient to buffet one a little. Ann, swimming out further than the children dared to go, could keep an eye on them, and was as happy and as carefree as they. Later, dressed and pleasantly tired, they boiled the billy and had tea. Then the little girls, barefooted, raced off to play on the beach, and Ann sat in the shade, and got out the book which she had brought