Page:Kangaroo, 1923.pdf/62

 when the evening comes, and he isn't home. You see I was used to a big family, and it seems a bit lonely to me yet, all alone in the cottage. That's why we're so glad to have you and Mrs Somers next door. We get on so well, don't we? Yes, it's surprising. I always felt nervous of English people before. But I love Mrs Somers. I think she's lovely."

"You haven't been married long?" asked Somers.

"Not quite a year. It seems a long time in some ways. I wouldn't not be with Jack, not for anything. But I do miss my family. We were six of us all at home together, and it makes such a difference, being all alone."

"Was your home in Sydney?"

"No, on the South Coast—dairy-farming. No, my father was a surveyor, so was his father before him. Both in New South Wales. Then he gave it up and started this farm down south. Oh yes, I liked it—I love home. I love going down home. I've got a cottage down there that father gave me when I got married. You must come down with us some time when the people that are in it go. It's right on the sea. Do you think you and Mrs Somers would like it?"

"I'm sure we should."

"And will you come with us for a week-end? The people in it are leaving next week. We let it furnished."

"We should like to very much indeed," said Somers, being polite over it because he felt a little unsure still, whether he wanted to be so intimate. But Victoria seemed so wistful.

"We feel so ourselves with you and Mrs Somers," said Victoria. "And yet you're so different from us, and yet we feel so much ourselves with you."

"But we're not different," he protested.

"Yes, you are—coming from home. It's mother who always called England home. She was English. She always spoke so prettily. She came from Somerset. Yes, she died about five years ago. Then I was mother of the family. Yes, I am the eldest, except Alfred. Yes, they're all at home. Alfred is a mining engineer—there are coal mines down the South Coast. He was with Jack in the war, on the same job. Jack was a Captain and Alfred was a Lieutenant. But they drop all the army names now.