o suddenly that Laura started.

She confirmed this, and let her solemn eyes rest on him wondering why
he was so red and fidgety and uncomfortable. The woman said: "Tch, tch,
tch!" at the length of the journey Laura was undertaking, and Peter,
growing still redder, volunteered another remark.

"I was nigh to bein' in Melb'm once meself," he said.

"Aye, and he can't never forget it, the silly loon," threw in the
woman, but so good-naturedly that it was impossible, Laura felt, for
Peter to take offence.

She gazed at the pair, speculating upon the relation they stood in to
each other. She had obediently put out her hand for the apple, and now
sat holding it, without attempting to eat it. It had not been Mother's
precepts alone that had weighed with her in declining it; she was
mortified at the idea of being bribed, as it were, to be good, just as
though she were Pin or one of the little boys. It was a punishment on
her for having been so babyish as to cry; had she not been caught in
the act, the woman would never have ventured to be so familiar.--The
very largeness and rosiness of the fruit made it hateful to her, and
she turned over in her mind how she could get rid of it.

As the coach bumped along, her fellow-passengers sat back and shut
their eyes. The road was shadeless; beneath the horses' feet a thick
red dust rose like smoke. The grass by the wayside, under the scattered
gum trees or round the big black boulders that dotted the hillocks, was
burnt to straw. In time, Laura also grew drowsy, and she was just
falling into a doze when, with a jerk, the coach pulled up at the
"Halfway House." Here her companions alighted, and there were more nods
and smiles from the woman.

"You eat it, my dear. I'm sure your ma won't say nothin'," was her last
remark as she pushed the swing-door and vanished into the house,
followed by Peter.

Then the driver's pleasant face appeared at the window of the coach. In
one hand he held a glass, in the other a bottle of lemonade.

"Here, little woman, have a drink. It's warm work ridin'."

Now this was quite different from the matter of the apple. Laura's
throat was parched with dust and tears. She accepted the offer
gratefully, thinking as she drank how envious Pin would be, could she
see her drinking bottle-lemonade.

Then the jolting and rumbling began anew. No one else got in, and when
they had passed the only two landmarks she knew--the leprous Chinaman's
hut and the market