ld "do", and when
they stepped out into the radiant autumn morning.

"What a perfectly scrumptious day!"

"Yes, bully.--I say, IS my waist all right?"

"Quite right. And ever so small."

"I know. I gave it an extra pull-in.--Now if only we're lucky enough to
get hold of a man or two we know!"

The air, Australian air, met them like a prickling champagne: it was
incredibly crisp, pure, buoyant. From the top of the eastern hill the
spacious white street sloped speedily down, to run awhile in a hollow,
then mount again at the other end. Where the two girls turned into it,
it was quiet; but the farther they descended, the fuller it
grew--fuller of idlers like themselves, out to see and to be seen.

Laura cocked her chin; she had not had a like sense of freedom since
being at school. And besides, was not a boy, a handsome boy, waiting
for her, and expecting her? This was the CLOU of the day, the end for
which everything was making; yet of such stuff was Laura that she would
have felt relieved, could the present moment have been spun out
indefinitely. The state of suspense was very pleasant to her.

As for Tilly, that young lady was swinging the shoulders atop of the
little waist in a somewhat provocative fashion, only too conscious of
the grey-blueness of her fine eyes, and the modish cut of her clothes.
She had a knack which seemed to Laura both desirable and unattainable:
that of appearing to be engrossed in glib chat with her companion,
while in reality she did not hear a word Laura said, and ogled everyone
who passed, out of the tail of her eye.

They reached the "block", that strip of Collins Street which forms the
fashionable promenade. Here the road was full of cabs and carriages,
and there was a great crowd on the pavement. The girls progressed but
slowly. People were meeting their friends, shopping, changing books at
the library, eating ices at the confectioner's, fruit at the big
fruit-shop round the corner. There were a large number of high-collared
young dudes, some Trinity and Ormond men with coloured hatbands, ladies
with little parcels dangling from their wrists, and countless
schoolgirls like themselves. Tilly grew momentarily livelier; her big
eyes pounced, hawk-like, on every face she met, and her words to Laura
became more disjointed than before. Finally, her efforts were crowned
with success: she managed, by dint of glance and smile combined, to
unhook a youth of her acquaintance from a group at