the autumn sun shone kindly on them. Sometimes on her
return there was a bewildered look in her face which I did not
understand, and I wondered whether indeed all was well; but I put the
thought away, for his love for her was beyond the possibility of doubt,
and had not her love for him coloured her whole life?

And yet--

Once I saw him take up _Ole Scorpio_ with a careful hand, and then
replace it in its recess with its spout pointing towards the room.
Presently, when he had gone, she gently moved it back to its former
position, exactly _en profile_, and the senseless idea darted through my
mind as I watched her do it that if her romance were moved from its
niche, she would instinctively wish to do the same, to readjust it to
the angle from which she had looked at it so long.

As the days passed and the first shyness between them wore off, the
primitive life he had led for so many years showed itself in a certain
slowness of speech, a disinclination to make acquaintance with the
neighbours, and an increasing tendency to long, tranquil silences with a
pipe in the garden. But, wonderful to say, it had not apparently
blunted him mentally. And he actually cared for books. Unfortunately,
there were almost no books in the cottage. How he had kept it I cannot
imagine, but he certainly had retained a quickness of apprehension which
made him half-unconsciously adapt himself to Aunt Emmy and her little
habits in a way that astonished me. It was she who showed herself less
perceptive as regarded him. But this she never divined. She had got it
rooted into her small, graceful head that he would naturally wish to
converse principally about his farm. And, in spite of scant
encouragement, she continually "showed an interest," as she herself
expressed it, in sheep, and water creeks, and snakes, and bush fires. He
was always perfectly good-natured, and ready to answer; but I sometimes
wondered how it was she did not realise that she asked the same
questions over and over again.

"Uncle Bob does not seem to care to talk much about his farming," I
ventured one day. "Perhaps he wishes to forget it for a little while."

"My dear," said Aunt Emmy rebukingly, "when you are as old as I am, you
will know that the only thing men really care to talk of _is_ their
business. My dear father always talked of stocks, and shares, and--and
bonuses. He said I could not understand about them, as indeed I could
not, but it interested me very much to