Russians entering the Heads past the
pretty township, and the beflagged bathing-enclosures on the beach
below. They neared the tall, granite lighthouse at the point, with the
flagstaff at its side where incoming steamers were signalled; and as
soon as they had rounded this corner they were in view of the Heads
themselves. From the distant cliffs there ran out, on either side,
brown reefs, which made the inrushing water dance and foam, and the
entrance to the Bay narrow and dangerous: on one side, there projected
the portion of a wreck which had lain there as long as Laura had been
in the world. Then, having made a sharp turn to the left, the boat
crossed to the opposite coast, and steamed past barrack-like buildings
lying asleep in the fierce sunshine of the afternoon; and, in due
course, it stopped at Laura's destination.

Old Anne was waiting on the jetty, having hitched the horse to a post:
she had driven in, in the 'shandrydan', to meet Laura. For the cottage
was not on the front beach, with the hotels and boarding-houses, the
fenced-in baths and great gentle slope of yellow sand: it stood in the
bush, on the back beach, which gave to the open sea.

Laura took her seat beside the old woman in her linen sunbonnet, the
body of the vehicle being packed full of groceries and other stores;
and the drive began. Directly they were clear of the township the road
as good as ceased, became a mere sandy track, running through a scrub
of ti-trees.--And what sand! White, dry, sliding sand, through which
the horse shuffled and floundered, in which the wheels sank and stuck.
Had one of the many hillocks to be taken, the two on the box-seat
instinctively threw their weight forward; old Anne, who had a stripped
wattle-bough for a whip, urged and cajoled; and more than once she
handed Laura the reins and got down, to give the horse a pull. They had
always to be ducking their heads, too, to let the low ti-tree branches
sweep over their backs.

About a couple of miles out, the old woman alighted and slipped a rail;
and having passed the only other house within cooee, they drove through
a paddock, but at a walking-pace, because of the thousands of
rabbit-burrows that perforated the ground. Another slip-rail lowered,
they drew up at the foot of a steepish hill, beside a sandy little
vegetable garden, a shed and a pump. The house was perched on the top
of the hill, and directly they sighted it they also saw Pin flying
down, her sunbonn