his own hut; they don't even get
bread, only rations of flour to make damper for themselves. Then
we give them a fixed, quantity of meat, tea, sugar, tobacco,
candles, soap, and one or two other things."

"Where do you keep the wool and things?" said Pip, who had a soul
above home-made soap and metal dips for candles; "I can't see any
shed or anything."

Mrs. Hassal told him they were a mile away, down by the creek,
where the sheep were washed and sheared at the proper season. But
the heat was too much to make even Pip want to go just then, so they
attached themselves to Mr. Hassal, leaving little grandma with
Esther, the General, and Baby, and went over to the brick stables
near.

There were three or four buggies under cover, but no horses at all,
they were farther afield. Across the paddock they went, and up the
hill. Half a dozen answered Mr. Hassal's strange whistle; the
others were wild, unbroken things, that tossed their manes and fled
away at the sight of people to the farthermost parts where the trees
grew.

Pip chose one, a grey, with long, fleet-looking legs and a narrow,
beautiful head; he prided himself upon knowing something about
"points." Judy picked a black, with reddish, restless eyes, but
Mr. Hassal refused it because it had an uncertain temper, so she
had to be content with a brown with a soft, satiny nose.

Meg asked for "something very quiet" in a whisper Judy and Pip could
not hear, and was given a ruggy horse that had carried Mrs. Hassal
eighteen years ago. Each animal was to be at the complete disposal
of the young people during their stay at Yarrahappini, but the rides
would have to take place before breakfast or after tea, they were told,
if they wanted any pleasure out of them; the rest of the day was
unbearable on horseback. Nellie was disappointed in the sheep,
exceedingly so. She had expected to find great snow-white beautiful
creatures that would be tame and allow her to put ribbon on their
necks and lead them about.

From the hill-top the second morning she saw paddock after paddock,
each with a brown, slowly moving mass; she ran down through the
sunshine with Bunty to view them more closely.

"Oh, WHAT a shame!" she exclaimed, actual tears of disappointment
springing to her eyes when she saw the great fat things with their
long, dirty, ragged-looking fleece.

"Wait for a time, little woman," Mr. Hassal said; "just you wait
till we give them their baths."

CHA