he long tramp to the station,
and the travelling through the night again, snatching his only chance of
sleep sitting upright in his crowded carriage, he fitted his holidays
naturally into the Railway Commissioners' Cheap Excursion seasons. And
then the fight again in the new-born day with Howie.

The lad looked miserable. How could he give up such a holiday? Yet how
allow Howie an uncontested victory with the latest stranger?

Max and Muffie had run back along the path in pursuit of a lively
lizard. Only Lynn and Pauline, their sweet little faces ashine with
sympathy, hung on the gate.

The lad blurted out his highest hope to them. He gave his mother his
wages, of course, he told them, but he had been saving up his
commissions for a special purpose. He wanted to put "a bit of stuff" on
the Melbourne Cup.

"I know I'll win," he said, with glistening eyes. "It'll be five hundred
at least,--p'raps a cool thou,--then I'll buy Octavius and Septimus out,
and mother and the old man shall chuck up that dirty selection, and come
an' get all the custom here. And the kids can go to school, an' I'll get
Polly an' Blarnche a pianner." The rapt look of the visionary was on his
face.

But he was torn with the conflict; it was plain he must give up either
his holiday or his commission on the new "stranger."

Pauline's position as eldest had developed her naturally resourceful and
intrepid disposition.

"Larkin," she said, "I've thought what to do. You go and see your
mother. _We'll_ get you the new man's custom. And before Howie gets a
chance of it."

Then Anna appeared on the verandah, ringing the lunch bell violently,
and Larkin rode home his dead lame horse, and Pauline marched into the
house with her head up, the other children following and clamouring to
be told of her great plan.

CHAPTER III

MISS BIBBY

The Judge's mountain home had an inviting aspect. It was not large,--it
was not handsome,--simply a comfortable brick cottage with a gable or
two cut to please the eye as well as meet architectural requirements,
and a fine window here and there where a glimpse of far-off mountain
piled against mountain could be obtained.

It stood back from the road and hid itself from the picnickers' gaze in
lovely garments of trees and green vines that would take the envious
newly-sprung cottage ten years at least to imitate.

Yet "Greenways" had never looked crude and painful as the naked places
about did, even when