Page:Coo-ee - tales of Australian life by Australian ladies.djvu/80

76 for that reason I was not drawn towards her. She was clever and amusing, a capital wife to Creek, who thought her perfection, and good-natured to the young fellows (myself included) at the place; but I don't think she was particularly sincere, or that her standard of honour was a high one; certainly her sense of truth was not, if I may judge from the tarradiddles she told now and then.

And whether it was that I unconsciously betrayed my estimate of her character, or for what she was pleased to term my fastidiousness, at any rate I was not exactly in her good graces. She gave me a Parthian shot as I was leaving, congratulating me on the difference I should find between their 'poor fare and rough-and-ready ways,' and the luxury of the Drummonds' house.

'But you see, Mrs. Creek, I am going to live at the station.'

'Oh!' with a tone of malicious surprise, 'are you to be counted amongst the men, then?'

'I suppose so.'

'I thought you were far too great a favourite with Mrs. Drummond to be sent down to the station.'

'Most likely,' I answered, 'she knows nothing about it. Naturally they would not care always to have a stranger with them.'

'It's fortunate our sensibilities are not so delicate,' she rejoined, 'as we have had to put up with having a stranger with us.'

I felt very much, at this retort, like the man who