ointed-toe, elastic-side boots with
very high heels, and voluminously 'bell-bottomed' trousers.) I rattled
questions at him, as peas from a pea-shooter; and when I had laid
aside my buckets he pumped away at my right arm, as though providing
water to put a fire out.

It seemed he had only that week returned to the district, after a long
spell of wandering and desultory working in southern Queensland. No,
he had not had time yet to go out to the _Livorno_, and he had not
heard of my father's death--'Rest his soul for as good an' kindly a
gentleman as ever walked!' And so--'Spare me days!'--I was an orphan
at St. Peter's! The queer thing it was he had taken it into his head
to be wandering that way, an' all, having nothing else to do to pass
the time, like! How I blessed the casual ways of the man, the marked
absence of 'Systum' in his character, that led him to make such
excursions! He squatted beside me on his heels, whilst I, fearing
admonition from above, got to work with my cows, and saw the rest of
the milking gang started.

Passionate disappointment swept across my mind when I learned that he
had been several hours on the island before I saw him, and that it
wanted now but ten minutes to five o'clock, the hour at which the punt
made its last trip with visitors. And in almost the same moment joy
shook and thrilled me as I realised the romantic hazard of our meeting
at all, which was accentuated really by the narrowness of our margin
of time. A matter of minutes and he would be gone. A matter of minutes
and I should never have seen him at all. But that could not have been.
I refused to contemplate a life at St. Peter's in which this
inestimable amelioration (now nearly five minutes old) played no part.
The hopeless emptiness of life at the Orphanage without a meeting with
Ted was something altogether too harrowing to be dwelt upon. It could
not have been borne.

'You'll be here first thing next visitors' Sunday, Ted--first thing?'
I charged him, as he rose in response to the puntman's bell. 'I
couldn't stand it if you didn't come, Ted.'

'Oh, I'll come, right enough, chum. But that's a month. Why, spare me
days, surely I---'

'You'll have to go, Ted. That's his last ring. Sister Agatha's
looking. Don't seem to take much notice o' me, Ted, or she might-- Oh,
good-bye, Ted! Don't seem to be noticing. Good-bye, good-bye!'

My head was back in the cow's flank now, and very hot tears were
running down my cheeks an