nment House she was not a frequent visitor, the foppery
and toadyism there were revolting to her. As she said, bluntly, "There's
too much hypocrisy there for me!"

As a schoolgirl she was somewhat tom-boyish and a recognised leader in
the mild forms of mischief open to the limited capabilities of young
ladies' academies. Memories of an heroic pillow-fight, in which she
figured as a leader, still linger among her schoolfellows. But her
happiest times were the holidays spent in the rough enjoyments of
Australian station life.

Life on a station is an interesting phase of colonial existence. There
are stations, of course, in these degenerate days, where a great deal of
style and vulgar "side" is put on; where the house-servants are in
livery; the dinner is served on silver plates, in empty mimicry of a
ducal mansion; where all travelling sprigs of nobility are welcomed by
the proprietor (who was probably a costermonger before his emigration)
to whom he is glad to introduce his daughter with the scarcely-veiled
recommendation that she has fifty thousand to carry in her hand to the
right man, provided he has good English blue blood in his veins and none
of the inferior colonial trickle. Fortunately for Hilda, she spent her
holidays on a typical Australian station, managed on Australian lines,
by an Australian owner, with Australian hands. Here she became an expert
horsewoman and her fearless nature had full play in its stirring daily
work, of which she always took her fair share. Her bosom friend and
fellow-conspirator at school was Susan Tyton, the daughter of old Tyton,
the owner of the station "Cattle Downs," and the two girls invariably
contrived to be there during the annual muster, in the work of which she
had been known to perform the duties of an experienced stockman.

May had once listened, with vivid interest, to the following description
by an old stockrider of one of her feats. He said--"I can see old Tyton
now, coming out of the house, followed by the two girls, his daughter
and Miss Mannahill. 'Now then, girls, if you are ready,' says old Tyton:
and we bring them two of the horses. They have no ladies' saddles, no
pommels to hold on to, only just a man's saddle with one stirrup, and
it was a treat to see them spring into them and settle themselves down
and quietly wait orders. They used to dress in short habit and leggings.
The stockmen take one direction, and Tyton with his party take another,
at full gallop