They were standing on a jutting headland, looking away out over the
Southern Ocean, and the sea, blue and calm as the sky above, stretched
out before them. Behind them were the low forest-clad ranges that
bounded the coast line, shutting out the lonely selection from the rest
of the colony of Victoria, and the only sign of human habitation was
the weatherboard farmhouse the girl called home. Even that was hardly
visible from where they stood, hidden as it was by the swell of the
hill, and alone here with this man, alone with the sea and sky around
her, with the soft South wind blowing among her curls, with the
plaintive cry of the seagulls in her ears, the salt savour of the sea
in her nostrils, she was sorely tempted to throw off the trammels of her
education, to do the thing her heart prompted her to do, to tell this
man he was dearer, as she felt in her heart he was dearer, than anything
on earth. But so much stood in the way. For twenty years she had lived
secluded in this lonely corner of the earth, all her thoughts, her
hopes, her fears, bounded by the horizon of her own home, and the narrow
limits of the township, just five miles away on the other side of the
ranges. And now this sailor man, brought home by her young apprentice
brother, had come into her life, bringing new thoughts, new ideas,
new--she whispered it to herself, with a hot blush--hopes.

Five-and-twenty years ago now, Angus Mackie and his wife had emigrated
from the cold and stormy western isles of Scotland to this sunny South
land, and they had brought with them to their new home the stern faith
of the old Puritan, the rigid adherence to the old rules, the hard,
straitlaced life, and so had they brought up the children that grew up
around their hearth. And Susy was the eldest, Susy with the blue eyes
and rose-leaf complexion, and waving chestnut hair. So pretty she was,
this daughter of the South, it hardly seemed possible she could be the
child of the stern Puritan parents, and yet she had grown up in their
ways, grave and obedient, walking in the narrow path set so straight
before her without a question, and without a doubt. Never for one moment
had she looked over the hedges with which she was set about--hardly had
she realized there were hedges--and now this man had come like a fresh
breeze from the sea, and he had taught her--what had he not taught her?
At his glance all the passion born of the blue skies and the bright
sunlight, and the warm