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Sylvia animated the routine of Lagoon Valley for Blanche and her mother. Her visit entailed the baking of cakes and the receiving of calls, and the returning of calls and the eating of cakes. Matrons arrived in shabby buggies with their children below school age during the early afternoon, and took flight in time for the evening milking. Ignez was disturbed by a feeling of increased obstruction. Not that she had a clear realization of the birthright of special talent and its special needs, but the artist has an inner taskmaster constantly nagging that age is rushing up and nothing done.

Ceaseless activity was the ideal in the homes of the Ridges, where the unplanned houses lacked comforts, conveniences or labour-saving devices. "She's never idle. If there wasn't anything to do she'd soon find something." Thumping on the piano was permissible only when no household task awaited. Practice in the mornings bordered on immorality. In the afternoon callers sometimes made anything but playing a "piece" equally out of order, and there was no one to put a different value on the girl's aims. Circumstances physically and mentally were against her developing as an artist. Sylvia's voice and Tot Norton's facility in dance music and accompaniments to comic songs were so much more entertaining to all that Blanche was contemptuous of Ignez's talent. Sylvia had scarcely any more helpful recognition of Ignez's potentialities. It was beyond her understanding to plan hours for Ignez's study and take what remained of the girl's energy for the help of the family. The foremost consideration was that Ignez should help with the work and entertaining. "You can easily make up for it before your lessons," was the idea. Blanche insisted upon her presence at Lagoon Valley partly out of genuine hospitality and also because Ignez's horse and saddle would be available for Sylvia. Mrs Healey was relieved to be rid of her thumping for a while and thought Ignez selfish or foolish with conceit to attempt the impossible in music instead of helping those about her.

Ignez herself did not yet know that her ambitions were impossible. She could assimilate theoretical knowledge in any odd moment and her inner resources were so fertile that she was not easy to frustrate. She withdrew into day-dreams for her real being. Every paragraph in the newspapers concerning writers, singers, and other artists was savoured. Life at Oswald's Ridges was only a sojourn. Soon the fairy of opportunity would rescue her. Singers and players were discovered, they escaped to London; then their lives began. As it was, the days were diverting enough to an inexperienced child of sociable nature.

The drought slackened the men's work. Twenty cows took no longer to milk now than ten in a lush season, so they turned to odd jobs. Dry dams were dredged and fences repaired. Hares had become a pest, they were eating the precious grass, and for some months Saturday afternoons had been set apart for drives—a combination of work and recreation. In honour of Sylvia the young men instigated a big picnic drive. The Mazeres and Healeys were hosts with Wynd Norton and Arthur Masters in active co-operation. The drive was to be across Lagoon Valley and Deep Creek. Drives had palled of late because there were always too many eager for the shooting and too few drivers. To crack a stockwhip and cooee all day to beat up the game, was much poorer sport than to pop at the scurrying animals. Even boys as small as Aubrey Mazere protested that they were "full of just bellerin' along like a mad bull till our throats are sore." But there was a rush of drivers now that the girls were to appear.

Oswald came with Malcolm Timson, and contributed horses for Sylvia and Blanche. He was himself mounted on his stud sire, the Merrie Monarch, an animal that had not yet carried a lady, but whose beauty so tempted Ignez that she went out and bestrode him, defiant of scandal.

Oswald went to help her off when she reined in, her house skirts flying. "You can ride him for the day, and you must come over to Cooee and try every neck-breaker I have. You're the sort of girl I need for my own. How about it?"

"About what?"

"About eloping with me."

"We'll do that when we are too old for anything else," said Ignez. Her natty black hogskin was put on the charger while she retired to don her habit.

The field was well-mounted, despite the season. Nearly every settler had a decent horse, the progeny of sires that patrolled the district each spring, but side-saddles were rare on the Ridges. The girls born there had to get about in the buggies or the farm vehicles. There were few girls present other than those of the Mazeres' party, who had learnt to ride up country. Sylvia in blue enhanced a perfect animal. Freda, though only seven, rode her Little Dick galloway with a skill and confidence that delighted Oswald.

Aubrey had to be contented with Suck-Suck. A brumby, reared by hand, he was full of cunning and tenacious of life. When a shabby and corpulent poddy he had drunk his allowance three times a day at the call of "Suck! Suck!", and had thus been christened. A solid character, he went in buggy, dray, plough, or saddle, and never jibbed. In good seasons he was a glutton, in droughts he could retain condition on half the fodder required by other horses.

Bridgit Finnegan appeared late on a bumble-footed half-draft known as Splodger, whose fetlocks had been trimmed to make him look more of a saddle-hack. She had a badly shaped skirt and an outmoded two-horned saddle and Healey was afraid she would fall at every spurt. Bridgit's heroism was rewarded by her finding Wynd among the drivers, though her performance was such that all of old Finnegan's savings in her hand would not have advanced her in his eyes.

"I'm ashamed to have a saddle that it's impossible to fall out of when Bridgit has that thing," remarked Ignez to Malcolm Timson, who was riding with her because Wynd had one side of Sylvia and Aubrey the other. Aubrey was adoring and proud of his beautiful sister, and mischievously encouraged by her in order to exclude others.

Mazere was elected captain of drivers and Healey captain of shooters. Allan was among the drivers until Malcolm Timson offered him an expensive breech-loader and thus freed himself to line up with Sylvia. Wynd, an inveterate shooter, was on her off flank. He said his wrist was not yet in trim for shooting.

"A sprained heart is even worse," mumbled Oswald.

"Father has an infallible liniment," said Sylvia with her innocently merry glance.

"For Wynd's wrist?"

"No, for your heart. Father uses it for tough things like hocks."

The shooters rode away to the crest of a ridge in one of Mazere's paddocks. The drivers started from the house shouting, whistling, cracking whips and ringing bullock bells.

A volley of shots rattled among the scrub and many brown wallabies and grey hares and some rabbits broke through the drivers' line to safety in the rear. At a shout from Mazere the drivers halted to estimate results. The hunt then went on again till Sylvia complained that the shot was falling on her hat like rain. All hands were then ordered to retreat until the captains decided on the next stand.

This was on saltshed ridge in Healey's back paddock and the hunt had to jump a boundary fence. The wires were strapped down and a macintosh spread on them to make a dip for the ladies. A man with a stockwhip stood on either side to persuade baulkers, but there were none. Grass-fed animals, some of them pathetically thin, followed the Oswald flyers without a skelp. Even Bridgit took the jump safely, though Larry Healey wondered how Splodger caught her, she left him so long before returning to the saddle. Aubrey was the last. The chaffing about Suck-Suck made him flush unhappily until rescued by Oswald. "That horse wasn't bred here. Best girth and hoofs in the drive, and look at the nick he's in! You stick to me and you can have a shot." Aubrey followed as happy as heaven as Oswald cantered off to join the shooters.

The usual complaints were rife.

"That —— fool of a Mick Finnegan shot my ear off," roared old Armstrong, one of the district's characters. Sylvia offered first aid with a handkerchief. "I'll be able to wear earrings. Vermin like Finnegan should be under the Noxious Weeds Act."

The young men started to elect a queen of the hunt. Wynd Norton called out, "I nominate Miss Sylvia Mazere."

This was received with enthusiasm by many lads who that day saw Sylvia for the first time, or who were there because of seeing her at the football match.

"I'll nominate Miss Norah Alfreda Healey against any man in the field," said Oswald, smiling at the little girl in a way he had with children.

"I'll back Miss Milford against this field or any other," said Masters. "Look at the horse she's on." The Merrie Monarch at that moment took a dislike to a nag near him and had to be withdrawn, not without a protesting rear and plunge, which at first was watched with trepidation and then brought a cheer.

"By George!" bawled Armstrong. "After that you get my vote as queen, my girl."

Blanche waited in vain for someone to nominate her. Her disappointment merged into annoyance with Ignez. "She's getting very forward," she murmured to Sylvia.

At a high moment in the nominations Bridgit lumbered into the company, a rare sight for the wags as Splodger nearly pulled her over his head.

"Here's the hippopotamus," murmured Archie Monro, a bright youth who was always top scorer among the shooters.

The spreading titter filled Ignez with indignation. She rode up beside Bridgit on her unmatched animal and called out, "I nominate Miss Finnegan instead of myself, because I could not fall out of my saddle if I tried, but I couldn't sit more than a canter in hers. Miss Finnegan's a champion."

"Ignez does love to show off," said Blanche, but Ignez in her tendency to protect the weaker was showing a dangerous lack of egotism of the quality necessary to success as a prima donna.

Masters was suffused with more than admiration as he watched her, and proclaimed, "All the ladies are queen of the hunt collectively."

"And so say all of us! Carried by acclamation!" shouted Wynd, waving his hat.

Lunch was to be served where Deep Creek met Rowe's Lagoon and there were gathered the non-equestrian women and a few men helpers. Mrs Mazere was looking bright and well. Dick had early brought the spring cart with the heavier gear, and his mother and a buggy full of eatables. Mrs Healey, Lizzie Humphreys, and Teddy had another load of provender. The boilers were steaming on a big fire. Every kind of food in season was laid out on tablecloths on a tarpaulin in the lee of a sheltering rock and clumps of briers. A ham, turkeys, a round of beef, pickles, pies of quinces and dried apples, cakes and preserves in plenty. The drivers cleansed themselves in the lagoon, some hundreds of acres in extent and almost covered with high reeds, where thousands of waterhens bobbed, and where there was always a pair of grey herons as decoration, and sometimes visiting swans and pelicans.

Mike Finnegan was earning the gratitude of the hostesses by his help in fire-making, water-carrying, and spreading the heavy tarpaulins and weighting them against the wind with boulders. Tot and Elsie Norton were likewise cultivating the matrons by usefulness and charm. Mick had contributed his horse and himself as driver for the Norton buggy, otherwise the girls would have had to forgo the outing.

"Ah," said Mick to Ignez, "this is the field in which true womanliness shines—care for the inner man."

"Do you think we girls should all have clustered round the tarpaulin, even if we were on top of each other?" demanded the vigilant rebel.

"If you'll permit me an honest opinion, it's more seemly for a woman to be a housewife than a horsewoman." This thrust was because Ignez had ridden the Merrie Monarch, whose full sex no lady would have named in mixed company.

"Why can't she be both if she has the stuffing in her?" asked Masters.

"Yes," complacently agreed Blanche.

"What about Bridgit? Bridgit, why are you riding about instead of boiling Mick's billy?" called Wynd hilariously.

"Let Mick bag his head," muttered Bridgit. She had had vehement passages with him before she mounted Splodger; she also had had to combat Da, and had not recovered her equanimity.

"Miss Finnegan, you must be on my side," pled Ignez.

"I don't know what your side is, but I'm on it if it's agen some of them others," responded Bridgit, rather glumly, but Ignez was so welcoming an ally that Bridgit relaxed to a grin. Her experience at the football match had determined her to consort with the Lagoon Valley girls. That way, she estimated, lay the winning of Wynd.

Pete Harrap slouched into sight among the stragglers, limping spectacularly.

"Old Armstrong shot straight at me, same as if he meant it," he growled.

"Congratulations on Mr Armstrong's sense," said Masters to Ignez, as they laughed together, remembering Pete's blither about Ignez's riding astride.

"Good bag for you, Armstrong!" called Oswald. "You've shot Pete Harrap."

"The fellow's a damned liar, like his father before him," rapped out the accused.

"You've put half a dozen grains in the calf of me leg," insisted Pete.

"Your leg's too dirty for anything but a blunderbuss to dint. If I shot at you it wouldn't be only to put a few grains in your —— leg."

"I'll pull the old fool," muttered Pete. "He ain't fit to be outer a horse collar, an' it tied to a water-bag to keep his onion cool."

Peter was advised not to jump off his pannikin. Masters warned him to expect more than a few grains if he talked dirtily about the girls. Lizzie Humphreys coaxed him to the Lagoon so that she could minister to him. Pete, somewhat mollified, went with her.

"You wait till he peppers one of them others and then it'll be my turn to grin."

"That's what I'd do too," murmured Lizzie soothingly. "I hope they will get a big shot right where it'll hurt 'em. They hadn't oughter have laughed at you."

"The ole —— oughter be tied up with a dog chain!"

"But, Pete, your leg is awful dirty. Don't you reckon you'd better wash it or it might go bad?"

"Your leg would be dirty if you was in the cowyard in this dust. I'll have a bogey when I'm going to be married," he added facetiously.

"Say, Pete, are you going to be married?"

"There's no tellin'. I might if I found the right girl." This was decorated by a leer most encouraging to Lizzie.

At the meal Arthur sat near Ignez, and Freda, her little worshipper, sat hard by. A crowd of all ages and matrimonial denominations surrounded Sylvia. Michael Finnegan tried to pair with Elsie, but Malcolm Oswald was stretched on the tarpaulin near the Mazeres, so Elsie placed herself there, too. Bridgit kept close to Wynd likewise by holding to Sylvia. Tottie quietly seated herself beside Arthur, and Ignez went with Dick to help with the teapots.

Dick suggested that he and Ignez should take a sprint on the Oswald horses. This was furthered when Healey offered Freda's good side-saddle to Miss Finnegan for the afternoon while Freda took his. He said he could use Bridgit's, as he had little to do as captain of shooters. He was perhaps the greatest horseman present, though he never asserted his prowess. Freda agreed, upon being assured by Ignez that riding astride was a fine thing, and Ignez offered to gallop to Deep Creek for a wider skirt, and return during luncheon.

She took all eyes as Dick tossed her to the black stallion and she manoeuvred him out of the ruck with verve and skill. Blanche was alert to Masters's interest in the disappearing figures and remarked, "I really think Dick is getting spoony on Ignez. Calf-love—too funny, isn't it?" Masters's face remained grave. "Most girls would think it bold to ride a—that kind of horse," persevered Blanche.

"Yes, because they couldn't ride well enough to manage him," said Masters.

The two adolescents were feeling that life at the moment was a gorgeous prelude to the real adventures imagined in their day-dreams as they dashed through the open timber.

"These horses make me feel like home!" cried Ignez. "I don't like being down the country except for my music lessons. These old creeks only run sometimes. The banks are only gashes in the earth and have no shrubs and ferns."

"I'll show you the best place. I wonder if you'll like the same places as I do," called Dick as he galloped in sour currant and hop scrub as high as his shoulders. The depressing drought was not evident in the primeval shrubberies of the back paddocks.

They took the fences gaily and crossed a flat strewn with fallen timber, thence up a ridge, and all the ridges thereabouts were riblets of the ribs of the Great Dividing Range. Between them were the empty, ever-widening cracks despised by Ignez—erosions on de-timbered levels that in wet seasons carried muddied currents of lost soil for a day or a week or a month. At the foot of one of these was a dam graced by a few reeds from which flew a pair of wild ducks—treasure number one.

"I'm afraid someone will shoot them." Dick led upward through thick clumps of black wattle. "It's heavenly when they're in bloom. Even now I can get some gum." He dismounted and helped her to slide from the Merrie Monarch. "See!" From the tussocks at the roots of a fallen manna gum a kangaroo-rat bounded away like a giant flea and disappeared along a dry watercourse that had first been furrowed by a bridle track from Healey's. "He's always here. I warm my hands in his nest in winter, but last summer I found a snake as snug as in a hat in a kangaroo-rat's nest."

He led farther through tree geebungs to the she-oaks. This was unfertile country, but as Nature had left it, and dear to the soul of the boy, so sensitive and hungry for beauty. Few other trees invaded the domain of the dark casuarinas. Dick invited Ignez to sit on the carpet of fallen needles, desiccated and comfortably dry. All was quiet but the sighing of the fronds in the winter winds and the champing of the horses as Dick held their bridles.

"Isn't it heavenly!" Ignez breathed, her eyes twin pools of response. "It makes me think of all the glorious sad far-away things like old castles in England with the beautiful knights and ladies, and the places where the great live. I long to go, don't you? It would be terrible to live all one's life here and get old and growly like the women with horrible things the matter with their insides from having too many children, or to take to drink like the men. I want to get away from Australia just as soon as I can."

"Everyone with anything in them clears out full pelt...We must go like winkie to get back in time." He tossed her on to the rampant horse and led over a crest that was crowned with mountain ash, bidding her note the polished blue of the sapling tips.

"Now I know where I am!" she cried. "The black cockatoos come here, and there are little bears in the hollow."

"In the spring there are armfuls of parrot heads—just like a beak with a blue frill—and the spotted double-tails."*

[* Tiny ground orchids.]

"Freda and I come here to get tea-tree for brooms, and the long tussocks make whitewash brushes. And in summer there is ever so much manna under that old tree. In this creek is the loveliest pipeclay."

"I come here, too, for that. I love to see the sunset creep up the gully from here."

"It's not as lovely as Jinninjinninbong and Ten Creeks, but I like it. There are heaps of ground berries here, too."

"I've written poetry about it," confessed Dick, satisfied and elated by her understanding.

"Will you let me read it?"

"I wrote it for you."

"Oh, Dick, you couldn't have done anything in the world that I'd like half as much!" Exaltation lifted the boy's eager dreaming mind. Ignez was wonderful. He longed to forsake the drive and go riding with her, but Freda would be waiting for her skirt. "I'm so glad you told me about your poetry because I want to write too. There's so much hypocrisy in books. I want to write one that'll show up the humbug."

"You need something thrilling to make a story."

"Just for a lark I'll write a skit on the romances in books."

The shod hooves hammered the ground, the nipping afternoon had abnormal warmth and gaiety, and they were back at the Lagoon before the drive had finished eating. Their inspiring secret flowered each time their eyes met and wreathed their faces in smiles until the more shopworn amorists could not but notice and be ribald.

Michael Finnegan lingered at the picnic fire with Elsie, commending her womanliness in platitudes infuriating while she watched Oswald taking Sylvia for a spin along the white road that led on to Kaligda and over the Lake ranges to Gounong and all the wide world of the Yass and Canberra Plains ringed by her native peaks.

"I feel quite stupid because I cannot ride," she complained. "This womanliness is all very well, but it's a great bore sometimes."

"The day always comes when the motherly girl comes into her own and these that tear about—"

"Will settle down like everyone else, and have had more fun," interrupted Elsie.

"I'll teach you to ride if you'll permit me that honour."

"On Splodger? I'd prefer a working bullock."

"I was going to surprise Bridgit this Christmas with a new saddle and lady's hack." This was prized out of Michael by the necessity of appeasing Elsie.

"I'd like a hack of my own."

"You know how to get one."

"I don't like the bait on the hook," said Elsie, but tempering the statement by a coquettish glance. She was too canny to eliminate even unattractive pursuers.

Evening drew in. Many had to hurry long distances to the milking and to finish it by lantern light in the frost. Skins and scalps were the perquisites of the drivers. Oswald purchased two kangaroo hides for Sylvia and Elsie. Dick had already made sure of the pick of the field for Ignez, and Masters secured her a second. Wynd honoured Blanche with the amiability that made him a general favourite and sometimes earned him the name of philanderer. Mick remembered both Elsie and Tottie.

Shooters and drivers with scalps and pelts at saddle bow, empty cartridge belts, bloody hands and worn whiplashes disappeared, leaving only those who hoped to go home with the Mazeres. Among these were the two Malcolms and Wynd. Mick had brought the Norton girls and intended to keep Elsie out of harm. He declined Blanche's invitation, to Elsie's annoyance. Sylvia mischievously invited Bridgit.

"I'd enjoy myself top-hole to come, thank you," she said honestly and courageously.

"You can't ride all the way home by yourself," said Michael.

Bridgit hoped that Wynd would mention that he went her way, but he was talking to Blanche and pretended not to hear.

"If your sister won't stay all night with us Mr Norton goes her way," said Sylvia to Finnegan, and her heart was touched by the delight in Bridgit's expressive eyes.

"Then don't blame me," said Mick shortly.

"Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!" replied Bridgit in imitation of Wynd.

Sylvia also invited Archie Monro, who said he would drop in after tea. Healey and Mazere had retired early. Allan, bribed by Dick, had left even earlier. Dick and Ignez capped the ridges and dashed into the hollows at a pace that rattled the bolts of the culverts. Sylvia fell to Oswald. Blanche lined up with Masters. A sly chuckle escaped Oswald as he saw Bridgit left to Wynd, who could not withdraw without being churlish. Young Timson had to consort with Freda and Aubrey and Philippa.

"I must sprint home to help mother," said Blanche. Arthur agreed in the hope of overhauling Ignez.

Half-way home Ignez had pulled up in a sheltered gully from which sped about twenty wallabies.

"That's where those cunning little beggars have been all day," said Dick.

"They live here. I coaxed Arthur not to let the drive come this way."

"Say, do you think any great guns of Arthur?"

"He's splendid. You can trust him."

"He seems to have changed lately, don't you think—not as nice as he used to be?"

Talk of Arthur seemed to depress Dick, so Ignez changed to the magic of literary creation until Blanche and Arthur went by at a smart canter. The youngsters had a pace that was cruel to Bridgit, and hard on the lolloping Splodger. Bridgit felt that she was being jellied and thought with terror of the return journey. She was too breathless to reply to Wynd's quips and longed to pull-up for a respite but heroically resisted such defeat.

Ignez understood. She rode out in front of Splodger and said, "Miss Finnegan, I want you to try my mare. You must be tired of holding Splodger all day; he's so pig-mouthed."

Dick gave Ignez's mare to Bridgit and took the Oswald charger himself. Nothing but Splodger would satisfy Ignez. The paces of a real saddle hack brought tears of gratitude from Bridgit. Ignez compelled the children to accept Splodger's pace until they dropped Freda at Deep Creek boundary gate. Dick charged on ahead to help Allan and had to explain to Masters that the change in horses meant no harm to Ignez. Masters then dawdled until the company overtook him. No riders would seem to have been quite happy except Ignez in easing Bridgit, or Oswald, far in the rear, with Sylvia, who rode like a fairy princess beside him, and who in spite of the drought was finding it delightful to be home amid so much fun, and with Malcolm Timson coming to tea.

"The paces of that fellow all right?" inquired Oswald.

"Perfect. Different from poor Bridgit's cart-horse."

"Bridgit is more at home in the cowyard, I reckon."

"She ought to be a wonder with a decent turn-out."

"Too much main strength. She would always sit like a bag of wet fish."

"Too much of the tame-hen womanliness admired by her brother."

"Mick's right about too much riding making a woman hard-faced."

"What about a cowyard?"

"I don't approve of that, either. All beautiful women should be kept for ornament."

"What would you do with them if they hadn't the qualifications?"

"Shoot 'em."

"How terrible! That's what everyone says about you."

"That I should be shot?"

"No, that you're silly about pretty faces."

"You can have no complaint."

"It doesn't interest me. I like the look of Arthur Masters better than any man in the drive." Masters was blunt of feature, Oswald singularly handsome.

"Lucky Arthur to win such praise, but don't you think I'm ugly enough for consideration, too?"

"What kind of consideration?"

"Only the tenderest will satisfy me."

"You have put me in the wrong classification, Mr Oswald."

"You must explain."

"You'll have to think it out."

"I shall, but I never rush my fences. Too many croppers that way. I camp till what I want drifts my way."

"Don't blame me if you find your camp lonely." She laughed, and touched the beautiful horse to a swift pace.

Eli Bull, a big unattractive lout was known as Cowpens, a play upon his name emanating from the Monros. His place bordered Masters's and he had circled about the flanges of the drive all day on his bicycle, his dull gaze fastened on Sylvia. He went home with Archie Monro without awaiting encouragement. This enraged Cherry, Archie's sister who had expected a better prize from the gathering. She and Archie had lived together on their tiny selection for several years since the death of their parents, and Cherry had no outlet for her intense vitality and good looks but to trifle with men and entertain them by mimicking the peculiarities of everyone she knew. She was known as a man's woman and was not soft or generous. There was no suggestion that she was not technically virtuous though there were rumours about the lengths she went in torturing her admirers. She had declined to go to the picnic of the hunt to sit around and hear Sylvia's beauty praised or to endure the men's interest in Ignez's "antics", which were grist to her powers of ridicule. She was used to abstracting the most desirable males from gatherings, but tonight none came her way but Cowpens!

Elders who had forgotten the ecstasies of sex, or who, like other low orders of life, had known them only as a blind appetite, commended Cowpens as a steady fellow who would have a home when the flash gadabouts would be glad of jobs as rouseabouts. The people of his own age repudiated him; the boys made him a butt; no girl was so neglected but she loathed Cowpens. Cherry could have slain both Cowpens and Archie in sudden fury.

"How often are those brutes at Mazere's?" he asked of Archie as they sat down to tea. No hints had been availing to send him home. Cherry's barbed shafts glinted off him like toy arrows off an alligator. "I'll have a bite to eat with you and then go on to the Mazere's," he said.

Archie assured him that the said brutes practically camped at Lagoon Valley.

"By gosh! I'll have to give up the chase there. I'm looking round for a girl. Violet and Daisy are being married this year, and I'll be on my lonesome."

"You're a sollicker!" gleefully shouted Archie.

"Aren't you engaged to Bridgit Finnegan?" inquired Cherry.

"No dashed fear! There's the religion, besides, she ain't good-looking enough."

"You certainly need something to redress the balance." Cherry's voice was undiluted acid.

"I like the looks of that Sylvier. A skinny little thing one time I sore her, but she's all right now."

"You're beginning at the top."

That top further incensed Cherry.

"Well, Arch, I can easy ask the others afterwards. Blanche is a good housekeeper, but Arthur's been going there."

"He's an R.C. That gives you a bit of a chance."

"You should plunge in—love at first sight," advised Cherry, who could scarcely refrain from mimicking Cowpens to his face.

"Sylvier's the hummer for looks—licks even Elsie Norton. Ain't been another like her ever seen about here. Oswald soon come fooling. That'll show yer! With girls like them a man needs to git in early."

This was greeted with inward rage by Cherry, silence by Archie.

"What're you always doin' there?" demanded Cowpens of Archie, suddenly suspicious. "Are you after one of the girls?"

There were grounds for the question. Archie spent much time with the girls of the neighbourhood. He objected to migrating out back, and there was no scope for him where he was. With Wyndham Norton he had his name down for a Government billet in Sydney. The opposite sex was attractive to him, but as he and the girls were all conventionally decent his flirtations simmered away harmlessly. When he was not at Lagoon Valley he would be at Blackshaw's or Tomkin's. He was devoted to the Mazere girls and Ignez, and, as a crack shot, was the idol of Dick and Allan. Sylvia's beauty awakened reverence in him. Ignez puzzled him, but she held his regard and affection in an uplifting way so that he would have been ready to defend her against all aspersions. He had something of deference for the Lagoon Valley household. His father had worked all his life on Blungudgery, with the tiny selection as a nest for the wife and bairns. He had come from the old country and had tried to instil a respect for "betters" into his family. Some of it had rooted in Archie, and, with his fine appearance and gentlemanly tastes, he would have made an excellent butler had that profession come his way.

"Fancy the hide of Cowpens!" he was thinking. "The brute's as mad as a snake."

"What'd you do in my place?" Cowpens asked.

Archie had the impulse to shout, "I'd jolly well jump in the dam to cool my head before ever I made a fool of myself with those girls!" But the thought of Cherry's jeers checked him, then the Monro delight in biting ridicule and a lively sense of humour triumphed.

"A pretty girl inside, Mr Oswald's horse outside. Um!" He affected to think. "I tell you what, Cowpens me sollicker, try leaving your old bike outside Mazere's—far enough away not to bolt from the music."

"What'd I do next?"

"Keep jigging. Take your jew's harp. They're terribly struck on music."

"I thought it was only that young one from up the country. I might get a frying-pan thrown at me."

"Aw, girls couldn't hit a haystack sitting."

The meal was finished. Cowpens rose unceremoniously.

"Come on, Arch. We'd better be making tracks. Ain't you coming, too, Cherry?"

"No! Chocolate-box inanity bores me to the back teeth. I've something better to do than watch it simper."

She was left to her savage discontentment and jealousy. Men's admiration had become a drug to her, and there was no hope of any on that evening. It had flocked to the simpering Mazeres. Ugh! what a hole to be stuck in among a few boors and oafs! Aided by that drug time had been slipping, but she suddenly realized she was now twenty-six and that no ridicule would much longer attract men from the softer younger charms of the Nortons or the elfin girlishness of Sylvia. The monstrous Cowpens thrusting himself in for a meal, unaware that she was an attractive woman! Gushing about female nonentities! She was abruptly confronted with the fact that physical youth was women's only reliable attraction for men. Losing youth women became sexually non-existent, and what other lever remained without wealth?

A pile of sewing awaited her. Sewing, always sewing on beautiful things for dumps of women till one day her sight would give out. She had taken over this job from her mother, who had been a lady's maid when she married Monro. Cherry had preferred to continue sewing in her own home, though it was merely a hut, to being a servant in quarters however grand. The families of the Ridges did not supply other women's homes with workers; they stuck bravely to their own. The desire to escape from Oswald's Ridges shook her, but without special training what could she do but go as a servant—hated word! None of her father's attitude towards betters had rooted in her. Her contact with such animals showed her her own superior ability, and roused her rage that she was shut off from positions that she could better grace with her dash and appearance. She suddenly decided not to grow old in her deserted home like a number of single women who spent their time in crocheting doilies and minding turkeys.

The folks of the Ridges all met as equal, but certain families associated, and others did not intrude upon them socially. Eli Bull's family never received an invitation to an evening with the Mazeres, Healeys, or Nortons, but as Cowpens had the temerity to present himself his company had to be accepted. His appearance was doubly astonishing since an accident on the way had left his shirt-tail extruding through the seat of his trousers, and, quite unabashed, he asked for a needle and thread and the aid of one of the girls. The boys, led by Archie, bundled him into the kitchen and stitched the two garments together, not without sharp pricks of the needle and with glee in his plight when he should come to undress. Mended, Cowpens entered the drawing-room with full assurance, produced his jew's harp, and volunteered to play a tune.

"Old Teddy O'Mara, a cracked horsebreaker up the country, used to play the jew's harp," observed Mazere.

"He'd need to be off his nut," remarked Masters with a stern eye on the intruder.

Young Timson knew the Mazeres were poor, which accounted for—for what will poverty not account?—but Cowpens was more than poverty could credit. Was he barmy? the young man wondered. Oswald's eyes twinkled in expectation of a jolt to his apathy. "Might as well be here as anywhere; no escaping being somewhere, even in hell," was his philosophy.

"It's wonderful to be able to make so much noise on a little thing like that," observed Ignez, interrupting the buzzing. "Can you play a mouth-organ, too?"

"It's not right to make fun of him," said Mrs Mazere aside, which assured Timson that Cowpens was ratty.

Ignez insisted that she was interested in all kinds of music. Cowpens produced a mouth-organ and began to snore on it with fervour.

"Did you invite him?" Mazere inquired of Blanche.

"He came with Archie. I bet Cherry sent him for spite," said Allan, as one by one the family escaped to the kitchen to discuss Cowpens. The snores on the mouth-organ grew louder.

"We must not leave him to the Oswalds, or I don't know what they'll think," said Mrs Mazere, and returned to her duty as hostess. "Ignez, Mr Bull will be tired. You play us that piece we like."

Cowpens removed his instrument. "I could keep on all night without getting winded. Archie told me you were all soft on music."

Archie's face reddened. Wynd had difficulty in suppressing his laughter.

"If the Devil lost his tail why would he go to a hotel?" he posed to cover Archie's embarrassment.

"Because it is a hot 'ell," ventured Allan, but Wynd said no.

"A little of some things goes a long way," remarked Masters. "By the way, Eli, I have a message for you, so perhaps you'll come outside now while Miss Milford plays."

"It'll do when we're goin' home."

Masters rose compellingly. "Now's the time." Cowpens left the room with him.

"There's a fire in the kitchen."

"We're bound for the stables."

"Wot is it?" demanded Cowpens, arrived there.

"You're going home. Letting Archie Monro run you on to make a fool of yourself before the ladies! You know the Monro tricks."

"Wot are you giving us? I've as good a right to be here, as you."

"You've a better right to be going home."

"Don't be too blooming sure. The boot might be on the other kicker."

"'Nough said! Time's up for you." Masters's good-humoured determination was convincing.

"Come off it! There ain't any need to get shirty till we see where we are. Which do you want? Any of 'em will do me, as I ain't set yet."

Arthur recognized that Archie might have a defence. "I should think any of them would do for you. You might start with Bridgit."

"I might come down to her, though her mouth is like a slit in a pie. The others might all turn up their noses."

The edge of Masters's ire was turned. He thumped Cowpens on the back. "See here, old buck, those girls are going to your head in the wrong way. You stand a better chance where the field is not so crowded. Try Cherry Monro."

"She pokes too much borak at a fellow. Some can't see it, but I can," said Cowpens with a streak of perspicacity occasionally given to the deficient. "You lay your cards down like me. Which do you want?"

"Dry up on that! None wants me as far as I can see."

"Which does Oswald want? If he's only hanging up his horse like he done at Armstrong's till Barbara got married, that would leave him out."

"I don't know his intentions, but you sit quiet, and not another tune out of you on pain of being booted into the dam."

"Orl right. But yous oughtn't all behave like a dog in the manger."

When they re-entered Ignez was playing a caprice and Wynd was selecting songs. Cowpens sat by the door till Masters began to talk to Mazere about the likelihood of the drought breaking and the prospects of butter trade with Japan. Masters was talking of starting a co-operative dairy. "It's time we got ahead of the amateur messing about. Dozens of small men within range could bring their milk. Cheese and butter could be made to standard. Each person with two or three pounds of butter wrapped in a bit of rag—the time has gone by for that."

Masters wasn't musical. In this case it was the musician that attracted him. He had forgotten Cowpens and embarked on his major interest. Cowpens's mind, such as it was, began to work. Oswald was singing. He had a pleasing baritone and Ignez was an uplifting accompanist. They were engrossed in "If I Were a Knight of the Olden Time".

Cowpens beckoned to Wynd to come outside. Wynd, curious, followed.

"Wot I want to know is, which of the girls you're after?"

"What ho, she bumps! Is this a riddle or what?"

"Dead earnest. Is it Sylvier, or are you only hanging about like you and Oswald always are?"

"Go and shove your nut in the dam! Who put you up to this?"

"I got the idear from Arthur."

Wynd saw an opening for fun. "You've asked me straight; I'll reply in the same tone of voice. The Miss Mazeres wouldn't use me for a slushy, so I'm hanging round to see someone else."

Cowpens took this to be Bridgit. "Thanks. You and me needn't clash."

"No danger at all. Who is Arthur's fancy?"

"He kep' it dark."

"I'd have him out again. You ought to have them all."

"Then you send out that Malcolm Oswald. Tell him to bring my coat."

"All right! It'd be a pity if you caught cold!"

Oswald had finished his solo. Blanche and Sylvia were playing a duet. Wynd eased himself to the sofa beside Oswald and whispered that he was to take Cowpens his overcoat in the backyard.

"Trying to have the loan of me?"

"A rattling chance for you to have the loan of Cowpens and keep him outside for a while."

Oswald, with a grin, disappeared, not unnoted by Blanche. Archie was feeling uneasy about Cowpens and to divert attention started a chorus for which Sylvia played. Blanche slipped away to investigate. She knew every plant in the garden and was able to creep near without being discovered.

"There're so many candidates that I'll have to wait for little Freda or Philippa," Oswald was saying.

"What about that Ignez? She's nearly old enough to put her hair up."

"Masters would be an awkward customer to have against you."

"Has he said anything about her?"

"I keep my eyes open and my mouth shut—good advice; take it."

"You ain't playing fair. Bring Arthur out again."

Oswald fetched Arthur to see what could be done with Cowpens. Blanche remained petrified behind the veronica bushes, the nipping night unable to chill her emotion. What had Oswald said? Surely not Arthur and Ignez? Ignez was too young to be seriously considered. Oswald had that notion because of the way Ignez thrust herself forward.

They were in the garden again on which the frost was stiffening. "Broken out in a fresh place?" said Masters. "Remember what I said about your head and the dam?"

"Blow it all, you're trying to work one against me! I want to know who I can ask first. What about Ignez?"

Oswald chuckled sardonically. "I don't know about you, but I'd about do for that girl's groom."

Blanche could not mistake the change in Masters. "It's sacrilege for you to mention her name. If I catch you looking at her I'll duck you in the dam."

"Don't get your rag out. I must start somewhere."

"Start on Blanche then," rapped out Arthur.

Awful words to the listening girl, and the callous tone was more freezing than the wind. Oswald moved to the stables to make sure that the rugs were on his horses. Bull and Masters went with him. Blanche, under the unpitying stars, suffered in one moment all the loneliness of her land that stretched away unpeopled to join the eternity of the Antarctic.

According to what Blanche had imbibed, Ignez had all the qualities to make a girl unattractive to men. Men liked womanly retiring girls. They despised those who aped men and put themselves forward. Yet Cherry Monro, who had been a magnet for men for years, was so unwomanly that the womanly and gentle shrank from her cruel ridicule. Now Ignez, who wanted to have a public career and parade on the stage, who argued with men about women's rights, and asserted that she had the right to exercise her brains, who said that women should ride astride and had been seen galloping with her undergarments exposed, was finding special favour. Sacrilege to approach her, huh! Dick thought her a prodigy. He was a mere younger brother, but Oswald spoke of her as superior, and how could Arthur be so duped! Blanche reflected that she was so strictly pure that she would scarcely let her ankles be contaminated by the gaze of men, yet Arthur could sool Cowpens on to her while he threatened to throw him in the dam if he approached Ignez. The inconsistency of men in preferring the unorthodox girl was as desolating to her as the demonstration of men's consistency in discarding all but the youthful had been to Cherry.

Blanche felt sick with helplessness before a major force. She had been patronizing to Ignez, against whose peculiarities she could illustrate her own womanliness, but now she saw Ignez as something that must be discredited. She returned to the company, covering her wound with hardihood. Ignez was playing and Arthur turning the music at her nod. Blanche turned desperately to Cowpens and asked did he sing. He said yes, if someone would accompany him. Blanche practically ordered Ignez to do this and remarked to Arthur, "Ignez can't bear to take a back seat."

Cowpens sang "The Hen Convention"—the famous hen convention that was held at Hambourg Green, where Shanghai crowed the loudest. He invited everyone to join in the chorus, a pleasant surprise to the children, also to Mr and Mrs Mazere, who had no ear and found the comic a relief from the sentimental, especially from Ignez's hollow moanings about a rose that was dead and a wraith of yore.

Pleased with his success and with Ignez helping, Cowpens then started a game called "The Big Sneeze", and from it progressed to others. He also saw that Wynd's riddle was solved by his confessing that the Devil if he lost his tail went to a hotel because bad spirits were retailed there. The intruding booby ended as a lively success, and Ignez, as his assistant, had not been made to look foolish.