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 leading to some shelter) until they were lost to the ear in the rattle of rain on the iron roof; then she stood irresolute, her mouth pursed into the tiniest crimson circle, and doubt in her eyes. She made a pretty picture in her dark blue habit, the firelight sweeping over the flushed face underneath the white straw hat, and dancing in her hair—a pretty picture in a frame of unbarked pine, with a beading of galvanised iron.

She glanced round the wooden walls. How clean and tidy everything was! She had never imagined that common bushmen looked after their huts like this. Was this a common bushman, by the way? He certainly said 'orf of' for 'off,' and dropped the h from 'horse'; but otherwise he spoke almost as well as she did herself; his manners were better than those, say, of Mr. Bird; and he was really handsome—she had discovered this at last. What a pity he was only an ignorant bushman! He was nothing more, after all; or else, for one thing, he would not fight so shy of a riding-habit.

The girl sat down on the quaint seat in front