"Bite! Oh, I see," said Jerry, "you mean black aunts," vague memories of Uncle Tom's Cabin and Aunt Chloe floating in the back of his brain. "I thought you meant white aunts. I didn't know that aborigines were as fierce as all that."

"I have never seen any white ants here," said Prudence, who called the native Australians blacks when she spoke of them and a-borry- jines when she read about them. "Uncle Jim says there are a great many in India, and they eat his books."

Jerry looked bewildered. "Of course there's lots of 'em in India," he said, "but I never heard of them eating books."

"I expect your uncle means that they devour novels," suggested Mollie.

"No, he doesn't. He says they eat a tunnel through all his books from one end to the other. And they stuff up the keyholes."

"Your uncle's aunts must be quaint old birds then," Jerry said unbelievingly.

"But they aren't birds at all, they're ants," cried Grizzel.

A loud cackle from Hugh, whose grin had been growing wider and wider, now interrupted the discussion: "Ho, ho, ho! One of you is talking about aunts—your Aunt Maria—and the other is talking about ants—the beasts that go to the sluggard," he exploded. "You are a pair of muffs! He, he, he!"

"'Go to the ant, thou sluggard'," Mollie quoted slowly. "Oh— Jerry—"

It took them some time to recover from this little misunderstanding. "Next time I see Aunt Mary—bites like red-hot nippers—oh dear!"

"Well, come on and dig now," Hugh ordered at last, twisting a cord neatly round his last peg as he spoke. "If you go on laughing like that you'll soon begin to cry, and this mine will never get started."

Thus adjured they rolled up their sleeves and set to work. Pickaxes were of no use in that sandy soil. The boys used their spades, and the girls carried the turned-up sand to the creek, washing it with the utmost care in the cinder-sifter. But their efforts met with no success. Neither gold nor anything else, except pebbles, rewarded their toil.

"It's always like that," Hugh said at last, sitting down on the edge of the hole they had dug. "Gold is the most gambly stuff imaginable. We know a lady who was as poor as a washerwoman one day, and then at breakfast one morning she got a letter to say her goldmine shares had struck a reef, and she got so rich she simply didn't know what to do with her money. She came to see Papa about it. She was an old maid, so naturally there wasn't much she wanted. You never know who is going to be rich and who poor, with a goldmine. Some of these pebbles are quite valuable," he continued, running a handful of shingle through his fingers, "there are amethysts and opals and topazes in some river beds. I have never found one myself, but I've picked up some pretty good crystals."

"I think I'll go and look for mine," said Grizzel. "I hid it in a tree near here. I am tired of gold-digging, and my feet are hot. I shall dabble them in the creek and eat an orange."

She got up as she spoke and went off towards a particularly gaunt- looking tree. Its trunk had split open, showing a hollow large enough to hold several people; for some distance around its roots protruded through the ground like old bones. Grizzel disappeared into the hollow trunk, whence she presently emerged with an air of triumph. "I've got it safe and sound. Now I'm going to get an orange."

Jerry eyed the orange-grove lovingly. Digging is thirsty work.

"Let's all go," said Hugh. "Orange juice is one of the most restorative things in the world; if we eat enough we will be ready to make a fresh start in half an hour or so. Very likely we shall have better luck next time."

It was hot, and the change from the glaring sunshine into the cool dampness of the orange-grove was very pleasant. The beautiful fruit hung invitingly from the branches with a colour and fragrance unknown to London shops. There were many varieties, and the Australian children wandered critically from tree to tree.

"I'm not sure whether I like navels or bloods best," Hugh remarked, "but perhaps on the whole, for pure refreshment, navels."

He stopped, as he spoke, before a tree on which grew oranges larger than the London children had ever seen in their lives—immense, smooth, opulent-looking globes of rich golden yellow. For a time silence reigned, while six people covered themselves with juice, "Like the ointment that ran down Aaron's beard," Grizzel said, and the ground in the neighbourhood assumed an auriferous hue that made the inventor sigh.

"I wish we could find a place where nuggets lay about like that," he said rather pensively; "it would be awfully jolly."

"It would be," agreed the others, "most awfully jolly."

"I think I'd as soon have oranges as gold," Grizzel said reflectively, looking down at the peel-strewn earth. "Think how nice it would be if you were in the very middle of a scorching desert, and dying of thirst like the men in Five Weeks in a Balloon, to find a lovely orange tree covered with juicy oranges. It would be nicer than finding gold."

"You do talk silly slithers," Hugh said derisively. "Who ever found a beautiful orange tree in the middle of a desert? You might find gold and bribe an Arab to give you water."

"You might find an orange tree in an oasis," Grizzel said huffily. "I am going to bathe my feet in the creek. Go and look for your old gold. You won't find it."

"All right, Carroty-cross-patch. You won't get any if we do," Hugh replied politely.

"Don't want it, Goggle-eyed-guinea-pig." Grizzel got up and walked off, her sun-bonnet dangling down her back and her red curls waving over her head. No one took any notice of these little amenities. No one remembered that the ointment which ran down Aaron's beard was like brethren dwelling together in unity—a good and pleasant thing. They were all brothers or sisters and accustomed to such mellifluous modes of address.

"We'd better go back and dig in a new place," said Hugh; "the light will begin to fade before very long."

They gathered up their orange peel and buried it tidily, and then stepped out of the cool grove into the hot sunshine with some reluctance. But gold-digging is not mere play, as Hugh reminded them. If you want to find a large nugget you begin by looking for small ones, and the search undoubtedly entails some hard work.

The new diggings were no more productive than the old. The boys worked industriously, digging widely rather than deeply. It was decidedly monotonous work, and Dick began to think that for pure excitement gold-digging showed up poorly beside football. Their backs ached, their hands were blistered, and the shingly pebbles got into their shoes. They were hot and thirsty, and into the minds of four of them crept a suspicion that Grizzel had chosen the better way of spending the time. They could see her sitting on a boulder, her feet in the water and her hands occupied with her crystal, which she was rubbing in a leisurely way on a stone, as one sharpens slate-pencils. The afternoon wore on; the sun seemed to gain in speed as he slanted down the sky, and tree shadows lay about the ground like long thin skeletons. A herd of cows, on their way to the milking-shed, trailed lazily past the weary diggers, reminding them of tea-time with its refreshing drinks and soothing cream and butter.

Jerry stood up, dropping his spade and stretching his arms above his head.

"I'm tired," he announced. "Let's hang our spades on a gummy tree and sit beside Carrots for a bit. I'd like to dabble my little feet too, before walking home."

Hugh assented somewhat reluctantly; he would have preferred to continue digging while daylight lasted. "We've done something," he said, as they took off their shoes and stockings; "we've found where gold isn't, and that's rather important."

"I know lots of places where it isn't," said Dick, putting his hands in his pockets, "I could have told you that without digging for a whole afternoon, if I'd known it was important."

"Of course I mean when it isn't where it might be," Hugh amended, taking no notice of Dick's gibe. "It's what Papa calls the process of elimination. You've got to do it with almost everything worth having really. You've only got to look at this river bed to see there's pretty sure to be something worth having there—in fact I know there is. It may not be gold, but it's something."

"How do you know it?" Mollie asked curiously. "I don't see anything particular about the river bed. It doesn't look half so likely as the gold patch in the road beside your cherry garden."

"I can't tell you how, but I do. Just you wait and see. To-morrow I think I'll try the old place again. I shall go on trying till I find something, either gold or precious stones. There might even be diamonds; there are in some river beds."

"Look," said Grizzel, holding out her hand with the stone in it, "I have rubbed a bit off one side at last. If I rub long enough it will come bright all over."

A small, roughly eight-sided crystal lay in the palm of her hand. Six sides were dull and colourless, the remaining two sides were clear and transparent.

"I rubbed my bit off exactly opposite the bit that was clean already," she went on, "so that I could look through it at the sun." She turned the crystal over and held it up as she spoke. A dazzling flash of pale-green light darted out, as though an unearthly finger were pointing at the sun. It was gone in a moment, and the stone looked dull and rough as before.

"What was that?" Grizzel asked, in a startled voice. "Is it going to go off like fireworks?"

"Give it to me," said Hugh, taking it from Grizzel's unresisting fingers. He held it up as she had done, and again the pale-green light flashed out. He moved it slightly from side to side, and with his movements the green light took on the shining hues of a rainbow.

"It's like a diamond," said Prudence in an awed voice.

"It is a diamond," cried Hugh. "I knew it! I knew it! I said so! Grizzel found it in the place we dug last year. Grizzel found it, but it was me that looked for it, because I knew! Where this one was there will be more. We have found a diamond bed!"

"If Grizzel hadn't rubbed it so hard you would never have known," Prudence reminded him. "She rubbed that bit for weeks last year."

Hugh turned the crystal over and over, examining it on every side. "Diamonds are terrifically hard," he explained more calmly. "It takes months to cut and polish a diamond properly. Grizzel's pretty good at sticking to a thing; I'll say that for her. I'm glad the first diamond was found by her."

"Well—it will take me some time to polish it all over," Grizzel said, with a sigh. "If I did nothing else all day long but rub it on a stone it would be clean in about six months."

"Who does this land belong to?" Jerry asked. "Is it your father's?"

"Oh, no—it's Mr. Eraser's. For miles around the land is his. That's the man we are staying with."

"Then the diamond is Mr. Fraser's, not yours or Grizzel's," Jerry pronounced.

There was a short silence. "Mr. Fraser said I might have all the gold I found," Hugh said, in a doubtful tone.

"I expect he guessed that you wouldn't find any," Jerry responded. "But a diamond like that is a different thing. If it really is a diamond it is probably pretty valuable—perhaps it is worth a hundred pounds. You can't walk off with a hundred pounds without telling."

"Well, we'll show it to him. Of course we'll tell him we have found a diamond bed," Hugh answered.

"It's my diamond," Grizzel declared. "I found it and I rubbed it and it slept under my pillow, and I hid it and I love it and it's mine. I don't care what anybody says."

"Mr. Fraser will most likely give you lots of money for it," Mollie suggested soothingly, "and then you can go and buy something nicer than a diamond."

"I don't want lots of money. I want my own dear little stone that I rubbed myself," Grizzel repeated, tears starting to her eyes. "Why should Mr. Fraser take my stone and chop it all up with horrible sharp grinding knives? It's mine. I found it."

"You'll have to show it to him first," Hugh said decisively, "whether you found it or not. If you keep it you will be a thief, and perhaps you will be sent to prison."

"Then I'd rather let it go back to its home in the river bed," Grizzel cried passionately. As she spoke she snatched the crystal from Hugh's hand; there was a flash of green light—a splash—and it was gone.

She turned and ran, sobbing and crying. Prudence followed, bent upon comforting her. Mollie looked scared, Jerry laughed, Hugh shrugged his shoulders:

"Just like a girl!" he said. "It doesn't matter; we'll find more. But that was a good diamond; I'd have liked to show it to Mr. Fraser. We'd better collect our things and go home."

Three of them turned away, but Dick lingered behind. His quick eyes, trained to watching the flight of balls of all sizes from footballs to golf-balls, had taken accurate note of the spot where that little splash had been. There were still circles widening round it. The creek looked shallow just there.

"If I scooped up the sand carefully now, as likely as not I'd retrieve that stone," he said to himself. "Grizzel is a decent little kid; she'll be sorry by and by, and, besides, the old chap ought to have his diamond if it really is a diamond. Diamonds aren't so jolly easy to come by as Hugh seems to think. That white stone is almost in the middle of the circle—I'll make for that."

"Don't wait for me," he shouted after the others, "I'm coming in a jiff." He waited till he saw them turn their somewhat dejected and preoccupied backs upon the scene of the late disaster, and then transferred his attention to the creek. At the point where he stood the water was comparatively deep; it had evidently formed a channel for itself, helped, probably, by a slender waterfall which dropped over a large boulder on the higher ground some distance beyond the fallen tree.

"I can crawl over that and drop off at the shallow part," he thought, "I'll have to look sharp or the circles will be gone."

He rolled up his already short flannels and started. The tree was by no means steady—it rolled and shook under his weight; but, as the worst that could happen would be a good soaking, he did not worry overmuch, and soon slid off into the shallow stream. As he had predicted, the water there barely reached to his knees. He scrutinized the ever-widening circle, now faint and irregular, and, calculating the distance from its edge to its centre, he fixed his eyes intently upon the white stone and cautiously waded towards it, his movements in the water breaking up the last traces of the circle. When he reached the white stone he halted.

"It was here, almost to a T, or my name is not Richard Gordon," he muttered, and, stooping carefully, he scooped up a double handful of shingly sand from the river bottom. He stood up, letting the water run away through his tightly closed fingers. As he bent his head to examine the pebbles left in his hand, a sunbeam darted over his shoulder—there was a flash of pale green.

"Got it, by jinks!" he chuckled exultantly. "First go-off! Good for you, Richard, my boy—your eye is pretty well in and no mistake. Come out of that, my young diamond, and let's have a look at you— you'd do A1 for heliographing with."

Dick soon scrambled to shore, and stood for a moment looking after the others, now far ahead. "I'll put him back in the hollow trunk where Grizzel hid him," he decided, with a twinkle in his eyes. "It might be rather a lark—"

A sharp sprint brought him up with the other two boys, who were awaiting his arrival seated on the top of a slip-rail, Mollie having gone in search of Prudence and Grizzel.

"What on earth have you been doing?" Hugh demanded. "Have you been swimming?"

"I was only having a look round," Dick answered, with a wink at Jerry; "I thought I'd do a little prospecting on my own."

"Why didn't you tell me, you beast?" Jerry asked, linking his arm into Dick's affectionately.

Dick answered by a friendly punch on the head. "Who is Mr. Fraser?" he asked Hugh, settling himself in his place on the rail.

"He is a man we know," Hugh replied rather vaguely. "He owns all this part and is as rich as a nabob, but he isn't married, so he lives up here all alone, with two or three Chinese servants in the house. He once lived in China. He's awfully fond of gardening, and pictures, and that sort of thing, like my mater. He's a merchant and he owns ships. He's a great friend of the pater's, and he comes in about once a week to hear the mater sing, and they yarn away about home and spout poetry. But he is quite a jolly sort of chap when you get him alone. His house is called Drink Between, which wouldn't be a bad name for a book if you wanted to write one."

"Jolly good name for a pub, if you wanted to keep one," Jerry remarked. "I shouldn't wonder if he got it from some old coaching inn of the olden times—though, of course, we are in the olden times already, if it comes to that—fairly old, at any rate."

"No, he got it from a place at home where Prince Charlie once had a drink. When the girls are here he gets in a couple of women to look after them. Other times he only has his heathen Chinee lot, and jolly good they are! That is, of course, if you like stewed puppy and bird's nest," Hugh added solemnly; "I love 'em myself."

"Adore 'em," Jerry said, smacking his lips. "Never lose a chance of having puppy-tail hash when we can get it, do we, old son?"

"Rather not," Dick replied. "Remember those bird's-nest tarts our old woman at the tuck-shop used to make before butter got so scarce? Scrumptious!"

The appearance of the girls interrupted these flights of masculine fancy. Grizzel still looked subdued, but the tears were dried, and she was listening politely to Mollie's tuneful advice to "Pack your troubles in your own kit-bag, and smile, smile, smile". Hugh shouted to them to hurry up or they would be late for tea, and soon the little party was under way again, as cheerful as if diamonds had never been heard of. They were now in sight of Drink Between; a square, solidly built house, with a wide veranda and balcony on three sides of it, completely hidden at present under a pale-purple drapery of wistaria.

"It looks like an amethyst," Mollie said admiringly, as they drew near. "I never saw such a purple house as that before."

The inside of Drink Between was entirely different from any of the other Australian houses which Mollie had been in. They entered by a side door which opened straight on to a narrow stairway. The girls climbed up to their bedroom, a large airy apartment opening on to the balcony.

"Where are your father and mother and Baby?" Mollie asked, as they washed away the remains of oranges and gold-digging.

"Papa and Mamma have to go and meet an immigrant ship to-morrow, so they aren't coming up till afterwards. And Baby and Bridget are with them."

"What's an immigrant ship?" asked Mollie.

"A ship full of immigrants," Prudence replied, brushing out her curls with conscientious care. "Immigrants are people who get their passage out for nothing, or for very little, and then they go to work here. Mamma is getting a new cook because ours is going to be married. And Papa likes to meet the Scotch immigrants and say welcome to Australia to them. Bridget was an immigrant, but she says she will soon be Australian."

"I see," said Mollie thoughtfully. "Are they ever married? I mean— do children come with their parents?"

"Yes, lots of them. Are you ready, Mollie? The boys are getting impatient. I can hear them growling."

Feeling very fresh and clean in white muslin frocks with pale-blue sashes, the girls descended by a different and much wider staircase than the one they had gone up by. They stepped off the stairs straight into a large hall, or living-room, which apparently occupied half the floor of the house, for on two sides it opened on to the veranda, and on the third side into a large bamboo house; the fourth wall was unbroken but for one door. The room was painted white, and the floor covered with fine white Chinese matting, over which lay a few Eastern rugs, their once rich and glowing colours now dimmed by time and the tread of generations of feet. Through the wide-open French windows could be seen the long, graceful streamers of wistaria, hanging from the arched boughs round the veranda like a lace veil. Against this background grew masses of pale-pink and blue hydrangeas, with their flat fragile flowers and broad leaves. The bamboo house was given wholly to ferns, over which a fountain was playing, and under the fine spray the green fronds glistened as freshly as though they grew in the heart of an English wood.

The sun was now setting, and its crimson glow shone through the mauve wistaria, filling the room with an opal-coloured light which made Mollie think of fairyland. It fell with a peculiarly pleasant effect upon a round tea-table spread for tea. She had never seen such fine and snowy damask, such shining silver, or such delicately transparent china cups and saucers. Even Grannie's well-kept table paled before the exquisite freshness of this one. As for the food part—there was a crystal bowl of yellow clotted cream, a plate of gossamer balls which were probably intended to pass for scones, a twist of gold which was most likely meant for bread, and dishes of preserves unknown to the English children—tiny green oranges in syrup, scarlet rose-berries, and jellies like amber and topaz, looking as though some of Hugh's precious stones had been cooked for his tea.

They were about half-way through this beautiful meal when there was a sound of footsteps on the matting, and a Chinese servant appeared, bearing a large iced birthday cake set on a silver tray.

"Hullo, Ah Kew! What you gottee there?" called Hugh, under the impression that he was speaking pidgin-English to perfection.

"Master talkee to-day b'long he burfday," Ah Kew replied. "He talkee my, wanchee cook makee one piecee burfday-cake." He set the cake down in front of Prudence as he spoke.

"Welly good, Ah Kew, Master b'long quitey righty," said Hugh approvingly. "Cook makee jolly-good cakee, me eat jolly-good cakee. Cook pleased, me pleased, cakee pleased, all jolly-welly pleased."

Ah Kew smiled a slow and mysterious smile, his black eyes closing up under his slanting eyebrows, and his blue-capped head nodding. He glanced over the tea-table.

"Tea b'long all plopper?" he asked anxiously. "S'pose you wanchee more can have plenty more."

"No, thank you, Ah Kew, me eatee more me bustee," Hugh replied politely. Ah Kew nodded his head again and departed, his pigtail flapping against the long skirts of his blue cotton coat.

Prudence cut the beautiful cake and distributed large slices all round. No grown-up person was present to make sensible remarks about not eating too much, which was a good or a bad thing "according to circs" as Jerry would say.

The children were all tired after their hard work and excitement; Mr. Fraser was not coming home till late, and had left a message to say that he expected to find everyone fast asleep in bed when he got back; so, after a tour of exploration round the house and its immediate neighbourhood, they went off to their rooms, and soon most of them were asleep.

Not all of them, however. Whether it was the cake, or the change of air, or the strange bed, or still stranger circumstances, or all combined, it would be hard to say, but it seemed to Dick that the longer he lay in bed the more wakeful he became. The thought of the diamond began to worry him, and soon assumed gigantic proportions in his mind. Suppose it got lost. Perhaps it was worth a hundred pounds, as Jerry had suggested. Suppose a magpie flew off with it. It might be worth more than a hundred; perhaps two hundred pounds. What if a blackfellow stole it, or the tree fell down in the night, or got burnt up. It is true that none of these things had happened during the months in which it had lain there before, but then no one had known that it was valuable. It would be just like luck, or rather unluck, if something happened this particular night. Dick's knowledge of diamonds was so small that it could be hardly said to exist, and he now began to have nightmarish visions of huge sums of money—thousands of pounds perhaps, lost through his folly. To be sure, no one knew that he had put the diamond back in the tree. But he knew himself, which was the main thing. He tossed from side to side restlessly. A new thought perplexed him. How could anything he did or left undone matter now, seeing that he wasn't going to be born for another thirty years? He belonged to the future, and the future could not influence the present—at least, he supposed not, but funny things did happen. Anyhow, this was his present for the moment, and he had his usual irritating conscience.

He got out of bed at last and went to the window. There was such a flood of moonlight that out-of-doors was almost as light as day. Why not slip into his clothes and scoot down to the bottom of the scrub- land, and collect that diamond? It would be better than tossing about in bed, and afterwards he would go calmly to sleep. The difficulty would be to get out of the house. Probably Ah Kew was on the watch for his master, and, if he saw Dick, would remark "no can do", or words to that effect.

Dick went to the edge of the balcony and looked over; it was not very far from the ground, but it was too far to jump. How about the wistaria boughs? They looked pretty tough—he decided to try, and if he fell—well, he had smashed himself up before this more than once, and no doubt would do so again. A few tumbles more or less wouldn't make much difference to him, especially, he reflected, as he was bound to get back to 1920 somehow or other. He could hardly kill himself now if he tried.

He reached the ground with nothing worse than a few scratches to his credit, and set off along the path by which they had come in the afternoon, keeping well in the shadow of the hedge in case Ah Kew's beady eyes should be on the outlook. So long as he was within the grounds of the house he felt confident and cheerful, but when he reached the slip-rail and looked over into the land beyond he felt some of his courage oozing away.

It looked eerie, that strange, unfamiliar country, in this white light. There were dead trees standing here and there, and their pale trunks took unpleasant shapes—they might conceivably be something else than trees—not ghosts, of course; there were no such things as ghosts. All the tales he had ever read about Australia suddenly started up in his mind—tales of deadly snakes, of bushrangers, of blackfellows, who had methods of their own of doing you in. One might go through a good deal without being actually killed. Now that he came to think of it, Australia in the 'seventies was a wildish sort of place—in some parts at any rate. He wished that he was surer where he was—how far away from civilization. He supposed that Ned Kelly and his gang were still at large.

But, of course, he could not go back. He stepped cautiously from tree to tree, keeping to the black shadows as much as possible. He could hear the sound of that little waterfall quite distinctly, and see the moonlight on the rippling shallows of the creek—now he could see the gum tree he was making for—he had taken particular notice of a crooked bough—what on earth was that?

A wild piercing shriek from somewhere beyond the creek brought him suddenly to a standstill, his heart in his mouth. Undoubtedly a woman was being murdered or tortured. Blackfellows, probably, as Ned Kelly made a point of not hurting women—at least so it said in Robbery Under Arms. Dick wondered what exactly the blackfellows had done to the woman—and there was the blood-curdling shriek again!

He stood still. After all, why not leave the diamond till daylight? He had been a silly ass to imagine all that rubbish about it, and a much sillier ass to leave his safe bedroom and come out to this wild and desolate spot all alone. If he had brought Jerry—

Ah, Jerry! There had been that affair of Jerry's eldest brother and the guns. Ten wounds. Both legs shot off. "Stick it out, you chaps." The very last words he spoke in this world, sweeter in Jerry's ear, Dick knew, than the finest poetry ever written. He gathered himself together and went on. It would never do to begin a habit of not sticking it out. For, wherever he was, he was always Dick Gordon to himself—a person for whom he wished to have a considerable amount of respect.

He wished that the orange grove, so cool and lovely by day, did not look so dark and mysterious by night.

At last! Here was the old tree. Now for it. He stepped round, prepared to enter the empty hollow regardless of possible snakes or blacks, when he heard a sound that made the hair rise on his head and the back of his neck feel queer, for it was unmistakably a child crying inside the tree. The child of the murdered woman, he thought. So the blacks were near—perhaps inside the tree at this very moment. The idea flitted across his mind that there was an extraordinary difference between reading about a thing and experiencing it. As the child's sobs continued he shrunk together— he would rather meet an enemy in the open and be shot at twenty times than face these savage and mysterious blacks—and then he suddenly decided that, if there were a child there, he must go and look for it and do his best, blacks or no blacks.

But at that very instant the crying stopped and turned to speaking:

"Please, God, let there be a miracle. Just this once, God. I'm sorry, God; I'll be good if you'll make a miracle. Only this once. I am very, very sorry." The crying began again.

"Grizzel!" exclaimed Dick, his fears all vanishing like darkness before light. "How on earth did she get there? She'll be frightened into fits if she sees me." He moved back a little distance and stopped to think. The best plan would be to call her softly, he decided.

"Grizzel! Where are you, Grizzel? Are you there, kiddy? It's Dick calling. Are you in your tree? I'm coming—look out!"



He came up to the hollow opening and looked in. It was Grizzel sure enough, in her little dressing-gown, her face blotched with tears and her curls crushed and tumbled. Dick put an arm round her: "Don't cry, kiddy; the diamond is all right."

"Oh, Dick, I did hope there might be a miracle," she sobbed, burying her head on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry. My poor little diamond, all those years and years shut up in the ground! It had just one look at the sun and then I threw it back. Oh, Dick, if God would only make a miracle this once and put my diamond back!"

Dick felt a choky sensation in his throat as the thin little arm tightened round his neck.

"It's all right, Grizzel," he whispered, "we'll find the diamond— let my arm loose a moment." He groped round, and in another minute the stone was in his hand. He turned it over, and a pale-green ray darted out, more unearthly than ever in the moonlight.

Grizzel gave a cry as he laid it on her palm. "My diamond! The miracle! I thought it would happen! I just thought God hadn't forgotten the way! Oh, Dick, I am so glad! I am so glad! My own dear little diamond!"

Dick had not the heart to explain at the moment that there had been no miracle, and Grizzel was far too preoccupied with her own joy and relief to wonder what had brought Dick to her tree just then; and besides, he thought vaguely, one never knows.

"We must be going in," he said; "it's ever so late and we'll be cotched. How on earth did you get out?"

"Down the back stairs. The others were asleep, but I could not sleep, thinking of my little diamond in the cold river—" at that moment a wild shriek rang out again, and Dick started violently.

"It's only a curlew calling to his friend," Grizzel said, creeping out of the hollow. "They scream exactly like people being killed, but it's only their way; they mean to be kind."

Dick drew a long breath. A wild bird and a crying child! Suppose he had gone back! Thank goodness he hadn't, but it was a near shave.

The boy and girl walked happily along, hand in hand. They had reached the slip-rail and were climbing over, when a tall man appeared from the garden of Drink Between.

"Grizzel! What in the wide creation are you doing here at this hour of night, or rather morning? Do you know it is nearly one o'clock? And what are you doing, young man?"

"Oh, Mr. Fraser—it's Mr. Fraser," she explained, turning to Dick, and such a confused tale followed, in which crystals, gold-mines, diamonds, wickedness, and miracles were all jumbled together, that Mr. Fraser decided that a glass of milk, a biscuit, and bed, had better pave the way to a fuller explanation next day.

Ah Kew let them in with a wise smile and several nods of his head, and soon both Dick and Grizzel were sleeping as soundly as the other four Time-travellers.

"It is a green diamond," Mr. Fraser pronounced next morning, "but what its value is we cannot tell until it is cut and polished. Then it will belong to Grizzel, to have and to hold till death do them part. If you really have found a diamond-mine, youngsters, something will have to be done about shares. Who finds keeps, you know. We'll have the place properly surveyed and see what happens. But don't begin counting your chickens too soon—these Australian diamond- mines are tricksy things; you never know how they are going to pan out. Wait a bit before you plan what to do with your fortune."

Mollie, Dick, and Jerry suddenly felt very sad as they remembered that they were out of this stroke of luck. Whatever happened, Fortune was not preparing to smile on them, at least not in a way that would be of any immediate practical use to them when they got back to London. And a fortune apiece would have come in so very handy just now—just forty years hence, that is. The boys made up their minds to investigate this matter of fortunes in the colonies directly they got home.

Hugh tossed up his hat and caught it again: "We'll be jolly rich," he cried. "The Mater will get her trip home, and the Pater needn't worry about bills and subscription lists any more, and I'll get that camera—oh, 'hard times, hard times, come again no more!'"

* * * * *

Mollie sat up. The clock was still ticking minutes into hours, hours into days, days into weeks and months and years.

"Oh dear," she said, "I do wonder—"

"Wonder what, my Molliekins?" asked Aunt Mary, preceding Hester with the tea-tray.

"I wonder," Mollie repeated, and then began to laugh. "I don't suppose you ever bit like red-hot nippers, did you, Aunt Mary?"



CHAPTER VI

The Grape-Gatherers or Who was Mr. Smith?

Aunt Mary had gone up to London to do some shopping, and when Mollie came downstairs next morning she found Grannie installed in the drawing-room, instead of in the morning-room as usual, with another old lady who had come to spend the day.

"Mrs. Pell and I were at school together," she explained, as she introduced her grandchild, "and that was not yesterday," she added, as she settled Mollie in an easy-chair with the lame foot up on a cushioned frame. "My dear husband used this when he had gout," she continued, tucking a warm shawl round Mollie's bandages and large bedroom slipper. "It was made in the village under his own directions, and is most ingeniously constructed. Poor, dear Richard was such an active man; he could not endure to lie on a sofa, and I had the greatest difficulty in keeping him to his bed even when his attacks were severe."

Mrs. Pell shook her head as she looked admiringly at the foot-rest. "James was the same, he hated a sofa and would always sit in a chair. Not that he was so active, but he was stout, and stout people are more comfortable sitting up than lying on their backs."

Mollie coughed. She had either to cough or to laugh, which, of course, would never have done.

"My dear, I trust you have not caught cold," Grannie said anxiously. "Perhaps we should close the window. Your Aunt Mary has a perfect craze for open windows, and I sometimes think there is a draught in this room."

"No, no, Grannie," Mollie protested; "I have not got the least bit of cold, and I love the open window; it is so warm to-day. It was only a tickle; I get them sometimes—tell me about when you and Mrs. Pell were at school, please."

The two old ladies smiled at each other over their spectacles.

"That was not yesterday," Grannie repeated. "You would think very poorly of our school. We had no games, no gym-dress, no examinations such as you have; but we learnt the use of the globes very thoroughly, and we spoke French, so that we were not at a loss when we went to Paris later on. Our dancing was much more graceful than the foolish gambols with their ridiculous titles which you young people call dancing nowadays. Fox-trot, indeed! And bunny-hug. And rag-time. I never heard such names in my life! We danced the Highland schottische, and the quadrille, and Sir Roger de Coverley. And do you remember your famous curtsy, Esther? And how Madame made you show off on parents' day?"

"Indeed I do!" Mrs. Pell answered briskly. "I believe I could do it now, this moment. I have been wonderfully free of rheumatism this year."

"Do, do," Mollie begged, overlooking the insult to her beloved fox- trot in her anxiety to see a real old-fashioned curtsy.

Mrs. Pell laid her knitting on one side, rose from her chair, and walked to the middle of the room. She shook her somewhat ample black silk skirt into place, tilted her chin to an angle that gave her a decidedly haughty expression, and stood facing Grannie and Mollie.

"You must imagine yourselves to be our beloved Queen Victoria and our beautiful and gracious Alexandra, Princess of Wales," she said, looking so elegant and distinguished that Mollie suddenly felt rather small and shy, while Grannie, on the other hand, drew herself up into what was presumably the attitude of Her late Majesty.

Mrs. Pell lifted her skirts with an easy turn of her pretty hands and wrists, pointed a charming foot, so small that it made Mollie gasp, and began to sink slowly down. Down, down, down she swept, her skirt billowing out around her, her shoulders square, her head erect—down till she all but touched the floor, and how she kept her balance was a perfect miracle; then slowly up, with an indescribably graceful curve of neck and elbows, till once more she stood erect, pleased and triumphant, a pretty pink flush on her cheeks.

Grannie clapped her hands. "There, Miss Mollie! That was how we were taught to curtsy! There's nothing resembling a fox about that!" she exclaimed, as Mrs. Pell took her seat again and resumed her knitting.

"It was perfectly lovely," Mollie agreed warmly, "but it does require the right kind of skirt, Grannie. Did anyone ever topple over at the critical moment?"

"Not that I can remember," Mrs. Pell answered; "but, of course, it required a great deal of practice, and we did many exercises before we got the length of our court curtsy. Do you remember Ellen Bathurst, Daisy?" (How funny it sounded to hear Grannie called Daisy.) "And the time all the brandy-balls fell out of her pocket? How angry Madame was!"

Of course Mollie had to hear about the adventure of the brandy- balls, and from that the talk drifted to memories of old friends long since dead and gone, whose names Mollie had never heard. It was a little depressing, and her thoughts wandered away to the Campbells. She wondered where she would find herself that afternoon, and then remembered with dismay that Aunt Mary was away and there would be no tunes.

But after lunch Grannie insisted upon the sofa as usual. "You shall have your lullaby," she said. "Mrs. Pell and I are going to play duets. We used to play a great deal together when we were young, and no doubt our music is just the thing for sending you to sleep; it has a base and a treble and some perfectly distinct tunes."

"Don't be sarcastic, Grannie," Mollie laughed, as Grannie bent to kiss her. "I am sure it is beautiful music, and I like tunes myself. Jean is the musical one of our family. She jiggles up and down the piano in no particular key and calls it 'The Scent of Lilac on a June Day'."

"Well, well," said Grannie. "Times change. We are going to play selections from Faust, with variations. Sleep quietly till tea- time, my dear."

Mollie smiled as she listened to the selections. "—two-three, one-two-three, one—" she could hear the treble counting. "I like it," she murmured to herself rather sleepily—the morning's conversation had not been exciting on her side. "I am glad I am not James, for this is an awfully comfortable sofa—hullo, Prue! You are in a hurry to-day! I was just thinking of a nap—"

Prudence did not answer; she was listening to the piano.

"Mamma sings that," she said. "It's Faust. I adore Faust. Don't you? The waltz simply makes my feet go wild."

"I don't know it," Mollie confessed. "There are so many things I don't know. Hurry up, Prue. I have had such an aged morning; now I want a young afternoon."

"—two-three, one-two-three, one—" said Prue, taking Mollie's hand in her own.

* * * * *

It was very hot. So hot that Mollie could not be bothered to move. She was half-sitting, half-lying on a bed of bracken, and around her she could see the supine forms of four other children—Prudence and Grizzel, Dick and Jerry—all lying in various attitudes of exhaustion and apparently all asleep. Mollie was too lazy to turn her head, but she could see that they were in a wood. The trees were the eternal gum trees, with their monotonous grey trunks and perpetual blue-green foliage. They were not growing in the neighbourly manner of trees in an English wood, nor did they throw the cool green shade of elms and beeches, but still in their own way they formed a wood. Mollie lay with her back propped up against one of the grey trunks, her arms behind her head, and her eyes blinking sleepily. She wondered where Hugh was.

"You are a lazy lot," said a voice behind her. "I have been helping in the vineyards all morning, and I've discovered a new kind of grape. Mr. von Greusen thinks it might turn out to be a good champagne grape. The carts are coming down; don't you want to see them?"

As he spoke Hugh came round and stood at Mollie's side. He wore a coat of tussore silk, and his shirt was open at the neck; a wide pith helmet was on his head, draped with a striped pugaree with broad ends hanging down his back, and further decorated with vine leaves, which looked rather droopy in the heat. He held out a hand to Mollie and pulled her up, looking scornfully at the recumbent figures of Jerry and Dick.

"What a way to spend the time!" he exclaimed. "Their eyes tight shut and their legs spread out like dried fruit. They'll never discover a new grape and have the most famous champagne in the world called after them. Come on!"

Mollie had been listening for a little while to a distant rumble. It now resolved itself into the uneven racketty grind of heavy cart- wheels on a rough track. She went forward with Hugh, and, shading her eyes from the glare of the sun, looked up the road which wound between the trees of the wood they were in. As she watched, the carts came into view round a bend of the track, and soon they were passing before her. A team of six oxen drew each heavy load—such a load as Mollie had never seen in her life. Grapes! Grapes piled up like turnips! They had been thrown in by careless hands accustomed to working with rich harvests, and here and there they hung over the sides, or dropped to the ground, to be trodden under foot by indifferent beasts and weary men.

The noise of trampling feet and creaking wheels disturbed the sleepers, who, one by one, got up and came beside Mollie and Hugh. There was a smell of hot grapes in the air, mingled with the smell of sweating oxen, dry grass, and pungent eucalyptus, and the spilled juice of grapes mixing with the hot dust of the track added a peculiar aroma of its own to the general nosegay, as Dick described it. Mollie thought that she could never remember smelling anything so thirst-inducing in all her days. When the last cart had disappeared down the winding road, and the noisy rattle had died away to a distant rumble again, Hugh sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree and stretched his arms.

"Where are they going?" asked Dick, now wideawake and curious. "What happens next?"

"They're going to Mr. von Greusen's place to be made into wine," Hugh answered, "and it's a funny thing that however nice grapes are raw they are all equally nasty when turned into wine. Some go sour and black and you call it claret, and some go sharp and yellow and you call it Frontignac or any other silly yellow name. What I should like to invent would be a kind of drink that tasted of grapes, fresh sweet grapes. I'd add a dash of peach, and a slice or two of melon, and a bottle of soda-water. And just enough powdered sugar. And ice."

"Let's go and get the things now and make it this very minute," said Grizzel, tying on her sun-bonnet and making ready to start. "I'm so thirsty."

"It's too late to-day, and besides I'm tired. There was a man up there who wanted to know all sorts of things about the vineyards. Mr. von Greusen was too busy to go round with him, so he sent me. He was pleased with me for discovering that grape. The man's name is John Smith. I think he is French."

Mollie laughed.

"What are you laughing at?" asked Hugh, looking all ready to be offended.

"Oh—nothing—I'm not laughing," Mollie declared; "it's only a sort of tickle; I get it sometimes."

"John Smith isn't exactly a French name," said Jerry. "Why do you think he is French?"

"Because he called Mr. von Greusen a 'vigneron' and talked about 'hectares' instead of acres, and 'hectolitres' instead of gallons, and he told me how vines were trained in Champagne and Burgundy and Languedoc—all very Frenchy. Mr. von Greusen never talks like that. He was interested in my new grape, but he's afraid it won't go on being like it is now. He says it has about one chance in a hundred. I don't mind betting you sixpence it will be a champagne grape."

"I don't mind betting you sixpence he isn't French if his name is John Smith," said Jerry. "You might as well call yourself a Scotsman named Chung Li Chang."

"Oh—names! Names are nothing out here," Hugh said loftily. "We can call ourselves what we please. This is the Land of Liberty. Besides, Papa knows a Scotsman called Devereux, so there you are."

"Faugh!" said Jerry scornfully. "That's nothing! Everyone knows that Scotland is full of French names."

"I suppose you are trying to say 'sfaw'," said Hugh coldly. "There is nothing to sfaw about. Lots of Chinese people come to Australia and call themselves John Smith if they choose."

"Faugh!" Jerry repeated.

"Sfaw!" said Hugh.

"Faugh—" Jerry began, but Dick interrupted.

"If you two asses are trying to say pshaw you are both wrong. I happened to see it in the dictionary a few days ago and it is pronounced shaw; it's a silly sort of word anyhow. No one uses it in real life. Shut your jaws and stop your shaws and let's go and get a drink."

"You can go," said Hugh, whose feelings were injured by the lack of interest in his new grape. "I'm going to stay here for the present."

"Leave him alone and he'll come home and bring his grape behind him," sang Grizzel, as they set off down the hill. Hugh pretended not to hear.

"I wish I was a Red Indian," he muttered to himself, as he watched the little party straggling down the road. "I'd invent some first- rate tortures for Grizzel."

The children trudged along the track between the trees. The air was full of dust stirred up by the carts, the sun seemed to grow hotter and hotter every moment, "putting on a sprint before the finish", Dick groaned, and the children grew thirstier and thirstier, till Mollie felt she could hardly bear it for one minute more. Her lips and tongue were dry and parched, and, although she kept her mouth shut, the dust blew up her nose and down her dry throat. She felt as if the sun were hitting her on the back between her shoulders, and her feet kept stumbling over the deep ruts in the road. "A Guide's motto is never say die till you are dead," she thought to herself. "There are times when I wish I were not a Guide, and this is one of them. 'Be Loyal.' Oh—bother Baden-Powell!" She held up three fingers to remind herself of the Guide Law, and tried her best to smile. "How do the others get on without it?" she wondered, watching Prue and Grizzel as they loitered along just before her, Grizzel dragging weary little feet in the dust. "I suppose they are used to it. Life in Australia isn't all beer and skittles. I wonder what skittles are? If they are something nice to drink I wish we had some here. Even beer would be better than nothing. I am a beautiful Patrol Leader! Walking behind and grousing for all I am worth." She hurried her steps a little and made up to the boys.

"Let's make a queen's chair and carry Grizzel," she suggested. "She looks about done. We can do it in turns, Dick and me, then Prue and Jerry."

"Righto!" said both boys at once.

"But you girls needn't do it," Dick added. "Jerry and I have carried heavier loads than that, haven't we, old son-of-a-gun?"

"Faugh!" said Jerry, with a wink.

Fortunately for the boys, and for Mollie, whose pride as a Patrol Leader was now up in arms, and perhaps most fortunately for Grizzel, whose weight was by no means fairy-like, they were overtaken at that moment by an empty cart, the driver of which pulled up and invited them all to jump in. It was a relief to sit down, though the floor of the cart was far from clean, and they were rattled and bumped like dried peas in a basket. Mollie thought the road would never end, and began to wonder at what stage of thirst delirium came on. But the longest lane has a turning, and at last they came in sight of a white house standing in the middle of an untidy sort of garden. The usual balcony ran round it, but this time it was approached by a wide flight of steps leading up from the drive in front. The cart stopped before a wooden gate, and without a word Prue led the way to the back veranda, where a row of canvas bags hung swinging from the roof. There were taps in the bags, but Prue ignored them. She climbed on to the veranda railing, dipped a tumbler into a bag, and handed it down to Mollie.

Oh, the exquisite joy of that drink! The water was deliciously cold; it trickled over Mollie's parched tongue, irrigated her dried-up throat, washed away the dust she had been inhaling, and in half a minute made her feel like a newly-made-over girl.

"It is worth while being thirsty," she said, as she watched the others revive under the same treatment. "I never knew before what a delicious thing water is. I'd like some more, please."

"I wish we were all giraffes," Grizzel said, with a sigh. "I'd like to have a throat a yard long and just sit here for ever letting cold water bubble down its hotness."

"What about Hugh?" asked Jerry, his conscience smiting him now that the irritating effect of heat and thirst had departed, and he reflected that his slighting remarks were probably the cause of Hugh's absence from this refreshing entertainment. "I expect he is the thirstiest of the lot, seeing he is the only one who did any work."

"He had his billy-can of cold tea with him this morning," Prue answered, "and if he is thirsty it is his own fault for being so huffy. Anyhow, he likes to practise enduring things; he says it is a useful habit. The worst of it is he thinks everyone else should endure too. I don't see the slightest use in making disagreeable things happen ten times just in case they should have to happen once."

Hugh seemed to have forgotten his grievance when he got home. He arrived along with Mr. von Greusen, who came to supper and talked to Papa about vintages and vines, the prospects of the wine industry, the possibilities of olive culture, and other subjects interesting to Australians but a trifle dull for the English listeners. Presently, however, the name of John Smith was introduced, and the boys pricked up their ears.

"He asks many questions," said Mr. von Greusen, "but I do not think that his heart is in the vineyard, as the heart of a man must be if he wishes to make his wine world-famous. In your work, that is where your heart must be, my children," he added, looking solemnly at the boys.

"And where do you think that the heart of Mr. John Smith is?" Papa asked, with a twinkle in his blue eyes.

"Ah!" said Mr. von Greusen, shaking his head, "that know I not. The heart of a young man who brings himself to Australia and whose feet tread the vineyard while his eyes look far away, so that he repeatedly trips over obstacles—where is it?" He shook his head again and hummed in a melodious baritone:

"Mdchen mit dem rothen Mndchen Mit den uglein sss und klar."

"Aha!" laughed the professor, "I have seen more than one young man come to Australia to cure that disease. But I don't recommend the vineyard."

"I also not. Mr. John Smith should squat," said Mr. von Greusen.

Mollie laughed so suddenly that she choked, and brought a look of disapproval upon herself from her hostess.

"You may go, children. Mr. von Greusen wishes to hear you play, Prudence. Wait in the drawing-room till we come."

"Why did you go and laugh?" Hugh asked Mollie, as they trooped off to the drawing-room and thence to the balcony to enjoy the cool breeze which had sprung up. "I wanted to hear more about Mr. John Smith. I don't understand German. Do you? Why did Papa laugh?"

"I don't know much German, but I think Mdchen means girl," Mollie answered. "I couldn't help laughing. Squatting sounds such a funny cure for being in love." She giggled again.

"Girl!" Hugh exclaimed."Girl! I didn't think he was that sort of an idiot! He talked quite all right to me. No wonder Papa laughed. It's much funnier than squatting, I can tell you. There's nothing to laugh at in being a squatter. They're as rich as What's- his-name. Some of them are millionaires. I wish Papa was a squatter—but he would be no use on a sheep-run; you've got to be in the saddle all day, and keep your eyes skinned for blackfellows half the night. John Smith looked the very chap for it. Girl!"

"You needn't go on saying girl in that voice," said Grizzel. "It isn't the girl who is tumbling about with loverishness; it's Mr. Smith."

"What happened to the diamond-mine?" Mollie interrupted, feeling that another squabble was in the air. "Did you make a fortune, and is this house it?"

"Oh no—this house belongs to the Bertram Fitzherberts; they are fruit-farmers. They have gone home for a trip, and they told Papa to come here for the holidays, if he liked. Mr. von Greusen looks after the farm for them. His vineyard begins a little farther up the hill. The diamond-mine hasn't begun to pay yet, but it soon will."

"Do you like—is Mr. von Greusen a nice man?" Mollie asked hesitatingly; it felt a little queer to be such friends with the late (or the future, Mollie was a trifle mixed) enemy.

"Nice! Of course he is. Jolly nice, and jolly clever too. Why do you ask?"

"Oh—I don't know—he is a foreigner, and sometimes foreigners are— they're different."

"I don't know what you mean by different. Everybody is different from everybody else. Anyhow, he isn't a foreigner here; he is an Australian."

"What happens if you go to war?" asked Dick.

"We don't go to war. We are too far away to fight against other countries, and we will never fight each other, like America, and France, and the Wars of the Roses. There's nothing to fight about and there never will be. Of course—if we wanted to we could. We'd be first-class fighters if we weren't so peaceful. In fact," Hugh continued, in a somewhat dreamy tone, "I have invented, or at least thought about, several rather good things for fighting with— but they will never be wanted in Australia. Papa says that if ever there was a sweet and blessed country on earth it is Australia; it is full of peace and goodwill towards all men."

The English children were silent. It was a good thing, they thought, that people could not see into the future. Time-travelling was certainly best done backwards. And yet—who would want to wipe out the record of the Anzacs? Life was a fairly puzzling job, when you saw too far ahead.

"Papa says," Grizzel repeated, "that Australian people ought to be the goodest people in the world, because there is a beautiful Cross always shining in the sky to remind us of the Beloved Son, like the rainbow, so that we should never forget. But I do. Nothing in the world seems to keep me from forgetting to be good just when I most want to remember." Grizzel heaved a sigh from the very bottom of her sinful little heart.

Everyone's eyes turned towards the Southern Cross, conspicuous even amongst the myriad stars shining and throbbing with tropical brilliance in the velvety blackness of the sky. Mollie remembered that it decorated the Australian flag, and she wondered if the sight of it had made the soldiers homesick sometimes. They were real Australians, she thought to herself, born and bred in this sunny land. She could remember a day when she had been walking with her mother in the Pimlico Road—a dark, foggy, raw day in late autumn. They had come upon a group of Australian soldiers standing round the door of a little green-grocer's shop, and chaffing the good-natured shop-woman about the quality of her fruit. Mother had stopped to speak to them. Mollie could not remember exactly what had passed, but the men had been friendly and communicative, and if they had groused about the English climate they had some cause, she thought, considering the climate they had come from; and they were cheerful about the war—she could remember that, for their voices had followed them through the fog singing "Australia will be there!" to what she had thought was a very lively and pleasant tune—and yet Mother had tears in her eyes. It was a good idea, she reflected, having that device on the flag, for it really was a bit of home—for them. Poor men! Suddenly a new thought came into her mind.

"Look!" she whispered, laying a hand on Jerry's arm and pointing to the Cross, "look! how brightly it shines! Their name liveth for evermore!"

Prue had slipped indoors and was playing a grave prelude and fugue of Bach's. The three older people joined the children in the balcony, and sat quietly listening till she had finished.

"That was very good, my child," said Mr. von Greusen, patting her approvingly on the shoulder, "very good indeed. Next winter we shall study together some piano and violin duets. And now perhaps your verehrte Frau Mutter will make some of her beautiful music for us. Some Schubert songs, yes?"

So Mamma went in, and she and Mr. von Greusen both made beautiful music, separately and together, which the audience in the balcony enjoyed without troubling to understand, Prue being the only one among them who loved music with her head as well as with her heart.

A sound of footsteps on the path below attracted the children's attention. Someone was walking slowly backwards and forwards, obviously listening to the music. As he passed through the long beam of light sent out by the lamp into the darkness, he turned up his face for a moment.

"It is Mr. John Smith," Hugh said in a low voice. "Shall I ask him to come up, Papa? He looks lonely out there all by himself."

"By all means ask him to come up," Papa whispered cordially; "but go quietly, my son, or Mamma will be out to know who is there, and our concert will be over."

Hugh departed on his errand, returning in a few moments with a tall figure in his wake, which he led to one of the long cane chairs scattered about, and left to its own meditations.

The children looked curiously at Mr. John Smith, He appeared to be a dark-haired young man, with a considerable amount of nose and chin and a good many inches of leg. He sat very still, his eyes fixed on the starry sky before him. There was, in his general outline in the semi-darkness of the balcony, something vaguely familiar to Mollie— one of those tantalizing impressions that come and go and refuse to be laid hold of.

"But I can't have seen him before," she said to herself; "it is quite impossible." She looked away and tried to get to where she had been before Mr. Smith came up—to that fairyland which the musician summons up with a wave of his magic wand, especially perhaps for those who love music mostly with their hearts, but the teasing little impression disturbed her like an imp. Until the notes of Schubert's "Adieu" came floating out into the night and carried them all on its wings up to the very gates of Heaven.

The sound of the piano closing brought them back to earth. The musicians stepped out on to the balcony.

"Ende vom Lied," Mr. von Greusen said, as he left the lighted room behind him, "and the end of the evening too, for me. I must be getting home—hullo, Smith! Where did you come from? Am I to have the pleasure of introducing you to Professor and Mrs. Campbell, or has someone stolen a march upon me?"

"I brought him up," Hugh answered. "He heard Mamma singing and was fascinated like flies and moths and things."

They laughed as Mr. Smith made his apologies while he joined in the laughter. "You must come again," Mamma said, "and we will have a concert properly prepared for you. And you will give me all the news from home," she added, with the wistful note that was so often in her voice, "unless you will come in now, and try our Australian wine?"

But the young man could not stay, and, after a few more words of thanks and a grateful promise to come again at the earliest possible opportunity, he went off with Mr. von Greusen.

"Who is Mr. Smith?" Mollie asked, as they moved bedwards. "Doesn't anybody know who he is?"

"He is a young man newly out from home, and that is enough for Papa and Mamma," Hugh answered, with a yawn. "What does it matter who he is so long as he is a nice chap."

"But suppose he was a bushranger in disguise and—"

"Suppose he is Nebuchadnezzar, King of the Jews," Hugh interrupted, with another yawn. "I'm going to bed. We shall sleep tonight, with that cool wind. Thank goodness."

Next morning found them again on the winding road which led up to the vineyards. For three-quarters of the way it ran through the woods of yesterday; then they left the woods behind and emerged on to a bare and shadeless track on the hill-side, and ten minutes later they turned in through the gate of the vineyard Mr. von Greusen had given them permission to "browse" in, as he had expressed it. The English children had never seen a vineyard in their lives, and their expectations were inclined to be romantic and artistic. Large bunches of thin-skinned, bloomy purple grapes, hanging gracefully down from something like a pergola, was the picture they had formed in their minds. Mollie, it is true, had seen grapes growing in the cherry garden, but they had been so surrounded by cherry trees and other exciting objects that they had not left any great impression.

They found the reality somewhat disappointing. Here were acres of straight green lines hardly higher than gooseberry-bushes, and without a single tree to break the monotony or to cast a welcome shade. The bunches of grapes looked inviting enough, hanging among their decorative leaves and tendrils, but they had not been thinned and consequently were smaller than English hothouse grapes, while exposure to wind and dust had removed most of their bloom; but, in spite of their comparatively homely appearance, the children soon found that the fruit tasted sweet and luscious as only freshly gathered, sun-ripened fruit can do.

"This is Mr. von Greusen's experimental field," Hugh explained. "He mostly grows different lots for different wines, but here he has all sorts. We like these Ladies' Fingers; they go off in your mouth with such a nice squelch."

"What happens if you eat his favourite experiment?" asked Jerry, squelching his way diligently through a bunch of long, slender grapes of a translucent pale-green colour.

"He says, 'Donnerwetter! What see I?'" Hugh answered; "but he ties a red worsted round his first-class experiments and then we know. He has tied all my new grapes up except the bunch he took home."

Now that the children were in the vineyard, and heard Hugh talking learnedly of Black Portugals, Verdeilho, Shirez, and other strange- sounding names, they were more reverential towards his new grape, which might be called Hughenne, or even, he generously suggested, either Gordello or Campdonne.

"It has to have a winey sound, you see," he said, "or it wouldn't sell. I think 'Gordello' sounds rather well myself."

It did not take very long to satisfy their appetite for grapes. The sun got hotter, their eyes ached with the glare, and they decided to return to the coolness of the woods and gardens lower down. The boys wanted to go exploring; the girls were to be left to collect peaches and melons for the new drink—which might bear the honoured name of Gordello until the famous champagne was put on the market—which would then be ready and cooling in the spring of the Fairy Dell by the time that the explorers were weary of exploring. Thus planned the boys.

"Boys propose, girls dispose," paraphrased Mollie, as the three pith helmets disappeared, after their owners had condescended to gather a share of the Gordello-destined grapes and carry them part of the way towards the Dell. "If Dick and Jerry want drinks they can jolly well come and make them. I am going to have a rest."

Prue looked a little shocked, but Grizzel heartily agreed with Mollie. "I shall pull six peaches and one water-melon exactly," she said. "I am tired and my legs ache, and I can't be bothered with Hugh and his old Gordello."

A short walk down the road between the gum trees brought them to the fruit gardens, where Mollie saw peaches that made up by their magnificence for any hothouse elegance lacking in the grapes. Large as apples, soft and downy as velvet, glowing with crimson and gold, they were a perfect revelation of what peaches could be when they tried, and Mollie could hardly bear to wait till they reached the Fairy Dell before devouring one. But Prudence was firm.

"No, Mollie; not after all those grapes while you are hot and tired. Come and get your water-melon, and we'll go straight to the Dell and rest and eat peaches there. If you ate them now you might die all of a sudden, and that would be so awkward for Grizzel and me."

Mollie thought it would be more awkward for her, but did not argue. She followed Prue obediently, finding her basket of grapes, plus six peaches and a large water-melon, quite enough to absorb all her energies. If only Gordello were an accomplished fact, she thought, it would be very delightful. If someone else had made it and she could find it "cooling in the spring", as the boys expected to do, it would be extraordinarily delicious, and the more she thought of it the more delicious it became in her fancy. Poor boys! She was sorry for the disappointment awaiting them. Australians seemed to be a strenuous lot of people; no wonder the Australian soldiers were so brown and chinny.

Her meditations on chinny Australians lasted till they reached the Fairy Dell, the sight of which chased every other thought from her head. Surrounded by she-oaks and native cherry trees a smoothly curved hollow lay at the foot of a rocky declivity, its sides clothed with ferns almost startlingly green amidst the dried-up grass which covered most of the country around. A silvery cascade of water fell down the rock at the far side, its fine spray blown by the wind over the little hollow, looking in the sunlight like the veil of a fairy bride. Mollie recognized the delicate fronds of maidenhair growing in clumps here and there, and the edge of the pool at the bottom of the hollow was fringed with wild forget-me- nots.

The children scrambled down and seated themselves in a shady spot, untying their sun-bonnets and holding their hot and dusty faces towards the filmy veil of foam.

"It is heavenly," Mollie said, with a long sigh, as she sniffed up the cool scent of the damp ferns. "I don't wonder you call it the Fairy Dell."

"It is Mamma's favourite spot, and we often have picnics here," said Prue, hanging her sun-bonnet on a branch of she-oak that spread above them. "There's the water all ready, you see, and there's a place up there where we can light our fire. Mamma sketches, and we bring our books or we hunt for wild flowers; it is always a nice place to be in. Now we can eat our fruit." She produced a knife from her basket and cut a melon in halves. Its delicate pink flesh and black seeds called forth more enthusiastic admiration from Mollie.

"Let us arrange all the things among the ferns," she suggested, "and gather some forget-me-nots to put beside that pink melon; then the purple grapes; then the peaches—isn't it pretty, Prue?"

Prue nodded her head; she was speechless with melon, and soon the other two were following her example; and melon was followed by peaches.

Then Grizzel jumped to her feet. "There is a cache here," she said. "Papa often pops something in for a surprise when he passes this way. I'm going to look; there might be a pencil there, and I want to draw that fruit."

She soon returned, carrying in her hand a small basket, which yielded up two books, a small sketching-block, and a box of chocolates. "You can have the books," she announced, "one is From Six to Sixteen, by Mrs. Ewing, and the other is Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, by Jules Verne."

Mollie, being the guest, got first choice and took Jules Verne, turning the pictures over with much interest as she compared the Nautilus with the submarine of 1920.

"I do think," she said emphatically, helping herself to a large chocolate-cream with entire disregard of both past and future, "I do think that your father is a perfect peach."

Grizzel glanced up from her drawing to the still-life study before her. "He is more the shape of a water-melon," she remarked.

Mollie laughed.

"Be quiet, Grizzel," Prue said angrily. "How can you speak so disrespectfully of Papa? You should be ashamed of yourself."

"I'm not disrespectful," Grizzel answered indignantly. "I think it is a beautiful shape."

Mollie laughed again.

"You are disrespectful," Prue repeated, turning very red. "Papa does the dearest, sweetest things, and all your thanks is to make Mollie laugh at him. It is horrible of you, and I don't call it very nice of Mollie."

"I'm not laughing at your father," Mollie said; "I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing. I'm laughing at Grizzel. She is so funny."

"I'm not funny," said Grizzel, turning as red as Prudence, "and if you laugh at Papa for being partly the shape of a water-melon, I'll laugh at your father. Your father is an unripe olive and your mother is a bitter almond," she added vindictively.

But if she expected Mollie to be insulted she was disappointed, for that young person went off into fits of cackling giggles which she vainly tried to suppress. At last she rose to her feet.

"I've got the giggles badly," she spluttered out. "I get them sometimes. I think I had better go away for a little till I am better. I really am not laughing at your father. I think he is a perfectly lovely father."

"Then you shouldn't call names," said Prue, still very red. "How would you like me to call your father an apricot?"

"I shouldn't mind in the least," answered Mollie, giggling worse than ever. "You don't understand. I'll go away, and I'll explain when I am better."

She seized her sunbonnet, tucked her book under her arm, climbed up the side of the ferny dell, crossed the track, and ran into the wood on the farther side, leaving Prue and Grizzel to finish the squabble between themselves.

"We have eaten too much, that's what's the matter," she said to herself, as she slowed down to a walk and the giggle became less severe. "This hot sun all the time makes one feel crossish."

She came to a halt at the foot of a hollow gum tree, and stooping a little she peered within. It looked shady and cool, its floor powdered with decayed bark mixed with dead leaves—quite clean enough, she decided, to sit upon and rest until her giggles had finally subsided. She crept in, snuggled down comfortably, opened her book, and soon was deep in the adventures of Professor Arrownax, Ned Land, Captain Nemo, and the rest.

The shadows swung slowly round, the sun climbed higher and higher, and the day grew hotter and hotter, but Mollie, skimming along the bottom of the sea in the Nautilus was oblivious of heat. She was walking in the submarine forest of the Island of Crespo, treading on sand "sown with the impalpable dust of shells", when the sudden cracking of a sun-dried branch near at hand startled her and reminded her that time was passing. She closed her book, crept out of her tree, and set off towards the Dell.

"I wish," she said impatiently to herself, "that Time would find something new to do. His one idea seems to be to pass. He may fly or he may crawl, but he is incessantly passing."

She stood still as she spoke and looked before her. Surely the trees were growing more closely together than they had seemed to do; their tall grey-white trunks repeated themselves in a most bewildering way, and right in her path lay a fallen giant which she was perfectly certain she had not passed before.

"Bother! I have come the wrong way," she said, turning round and retracing her steps. "I remember now, there were some trees with rings cut round their trunks—there they are."

She reached the ringed trees, turned her back upon them, and walked straight on. But she came to a dried-up creek which she had not seen before. She could not have missed seeing it, for it was too wide to jump. And there were more ringed trees.

"I can't be far from the Dell, that's one thing certain. I'll coo- ee."

She coo-eed her best and shrillest, but no answer came. There was no sound but the occasional scamper of some small furry animal or the unhomely call of an Australian parrot or magpie. All around her the monotonous grey trunks stood, as much alike as the pillars of a town-hall, and overhead the blue-green leaves stirred languidly in the warm wind. Mollie was standing, though she did not know it, on primeval forest land.

What she did begin to realize was that she was lost.

"I can't be far away," she repeated to herself. "I wasn't running for five minutes. The point is, how am I to find the way back. Everything is so difficult in this upside-down place; I haven't the least idea which is north and which is south; nor which way the wind blows, nor how the shadows fall, nor anything; and if I go the wrong way I will only get farther and farther from the Dell. The best plan really is to sit down and wait till someone comes. Someone is sure to look for me sooner or later; Dick and Jerry will, anyhow." She looked about her again in search of inspiration. Sitting down and waiting was not a cheerful prospect. Dick and Jerry might whisk away home and leave her behind. Or she might merely wake up suddenly and find herself in the Chauncery morning-room, safe but dull, or—just supposing she didn't! Supposing that she couldn't get back without Prue, and that she turned into an interesting case for the What's-its-name Society, to be read about in learned books!

"I might try climbing a tree," she thought, gazing round in search of something climbable. But the tall, smooth trunks were discouraging; there were few with boughs within her reach, and the few there were were too low to be of any use as observation posts. She sat down and resolutely opened her book. "Never say die till you are dead," she repeated, firmly fastening the Guide's smile on to her face. "I'll read, and coo-ee every third page."

But she no longer walked in the submarine forest; she only sat in a wood and read about other people doing it, lifting her eyes from the page every now and then, and turning her head uneasily from side to side, feeling very lonely in that great, still place!

What was that? A magpie or a human whistle? "—two-three, one-two- three, one—". Someone was whistling the air from Faust. Mollie sprang to her feet and coo-eed with all her might and main. The whistling stopped short, and there was an answering shout in a man's voice. Mollie coo-eed again.

"Hi! You'll have to come to me," the man shouted; "I can't come to you. Tied here by the leg."

It is not an easy thing to locate a sound in the open air, and though Mollie had had some practice in the course of her Guide work, it was only after several shouts on the man's part and experiments on hers that she at last found herself standing beside Mr. John Smith, who was sitting on the ground with one bootless leg stretched out before him.

"I am glad to see you," he said to Mollie. "I have sprained my ankle rather badly, and was just wondering what to do next. There seemed to be nothing for it but to crawl all the way home, and the prospect was not pleasing."

"I am glad to see you too," said Mollie. "I am lost."

"Lost!" exclaimed the young man. "Oh no, you aren't. I have a compass, and it is not more than a couple of miles or so to Silver Fields, von Greusen's place. I'll show you how to use a compass, and you will be my good angel and go to Silver Fields and ask them to send a horse along, and I will be grateful to you for ever."

"I know how to use a compass, thank you," said Mollie, feeling greatly relieved, "and I will go to Mr. von Greusen's place if you tell me where it is; but first I will bandage up your foot and make it feel easier. I have learnt First Aid. May I take that thing off your hat for a bandage?"—as she noticed the pith helmet and pugaree lying on the ground.

"My pugaree? Good idea! I don't know what First Aid is precisely, but it sounds appropriate. Do you mean you can fix a bandage?"

"Rather," said Mollie, comfortably conscious that she was a First- class Guide and a bright and shining light in this particular line. "How did you sprain your ankle? I suppose you—" she stopped short. She had almost said that she supposed he had tripped over an obstacle in a fit of loverishness. "I suppose your foot just went. That's what mine did."

"I caught it in a rabbit-hole," he answered, "the floor of Australia seems to be perforated with them. Why didn't you coo-ee sooner?"

"I did," Mollie answered, as she unwound the pugaree and took off her patient's sock, "I coo-eed ever so often—oh, dear me! that is a bad foot! I'm afraid you'll be laid up for ever so long. Why didn't you coo-ee?"

"I did," answered Mr. Smith, eyeing the badly swollen and discoloured ankle ruefully. "I coo-eed ever so often too. I suppose we mistook each other for magpies. Next time I'll try a good English shout. Now, what's to happen? D'ye mean to say that I'm to be stuck up in Silver Fields for goodness knows how long with only my own thoughts for company and nothing to do? Oh, ye gods and little fishes!" he groaned disconsolately.

"I'm afraid so," Mollie replied sympathetically. "I sprained my ankle—" she was going to say "the other day" but remembered in time—"once in the holidays, and I had to lie on a sofa all day. It wasn't nearly so dull as I expected though," she ended with a little laugh. As they talked she had been skilfully bandaging the swollen ankle in her best style, which was a style not to be despised by anybody. "Now," she said, as she tucked in the end and fastened it firmly with her Tenderfoot brooch, "now you will be more comfortable. But you must keep quite still. I do wish you were not so far from home; you should not ride. If you do anything foolish now you may be lame all your life; that's what the doctor told me; he was most frightfully firm about it. Your wrist is bleeding—you have cut it."

The young man turned back his shirt sleeve. "It is nothing. A handkerchief twisted round will do. You have done the bandage beautifully."

Mollie arranged the handkerchief. As she did so her eyes fell upon a tattoo-mark, an anchor inside a true-lover's knot. It was an ordinary enough tattoo-mark, but the sight of it struck at Mollie for she had seen it before. The odd impression of last night, which she had forgotten in the various exigences of the situation, came rushing back into her mind. Who did he remind her of? How could she possibly have seen that little mark before?

"My name is John Smith," he said, looking up and finding her eyes fixed questioningly upon him. "I don't think we have met before?"

"I saw you last night at the Campbell's," Mollie replied aloud (while to herself she added, "And where I saw you before that is what I should like to know more than anything else at this present moment"). "I am staying there. It was dark on the balcony and there were a lot of us children; you wouldn't notice me. My name is Mollie—oh, you simply must not twist your leg about like that! Your ankle may be broken; you don't know."

He smiled; his eyes crinkled up and there was a something in the tilt of his mouth. Why was that smile so familiar? Was it the Prince of Wales? No, it was someone she knew much better than she knew the Prince of Wales. (Which wasn't saying very much after all.)

"You are very cheery! So you were there, were you? I never heard such heavenly singing in my life. Von Greusen says that Mrs. Campbell has one of the most beautiful voices in South Australia, and I should say that he has the other. But it isn't only their voices, it's the way they sing, making you think of all the might- have-beens and ought-to-have-beens and never-will-bes—" he stopped, and sighed in a melancholy way, leaning his back against the tree behind him. "I think you had better be starting, Miss Polly. Neither of us will be the worse of getting home."

"Mollie, not Polly. I wish you had not to be left alone. I will be as quick as I can. How shall I describe this place? I think I had better come back with the men."

"No need for that. Tell them I'm by the creek on the way to the olive plantation. They'll know. I have a sister called Polly. I was thinking of her at that moment," he added, with another sigh. "I had a letter from her yesterday and she wants me to go back. The point is, shall I go or shall I not?"