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with her. She always provided herself with books on these excursions, though she did not always open them. Sometimes she played with the children—enjoying their games almost as much as they did—or lay idly dreaming, looking up at the blue sky, and listening to the sound of the surf, and the gulls, and the locusts rasping in the hot sunshine of the hillside. Her thoughts traveled back to England. A lovely land, but not more beautiful than the wild freedom of this new country; and she felt a sense of pity for the millions now in the gray cities there, treading grimy pavements through November fogs. Mrs. Holmes might sigh for London shops. Ann felt she didn’t care if she never saw a shop window again! Sunshine, blue seas and skies—silver beaches—hills that were blue and mauve and purple in the distance—deep green of the fern-filled bush—this was God’s shop window! She could be happy here for the rest of her life.

The sound of a horse moving through the dried brushwood near at hand made her look up, and she saw Rodney Marsh riding towards her. She hailed him cheerfully.

“Hallo. Where are you off to?”

“Just been round looking at some of the fences,” he answered.

“Have a cup of tea?”

“I don’t mind if I do,” he answered.

This was a form of reply she’d grown accustomed to lately. It always amused her mildly. The obligation of receiving was thus in some subtle fashion transmuted into a condescension of acceptance.

“I’d rather make you some fresh. It’s rather stewed in the billy.”

“I like it stewed—so long as it’s hot.”