f asking the why and the wherefore of things. Why had
Harold Beecham (who was a sort of young sultan who could throw the
handkerchief where he liked) chosen me of all women? I had no charms to
recommend me--none of the virtues which men demand of the woman they wish
to make their wife. To begin with, I was small, I was erratic and
unorthodox, I was nothing but a tomboy--and, cardinal disqualification, I
was ugly. Why, then, had he proposed matrimony to me? Was it merely a
whim? Was he really in earnest?

The night was soft and dark; after being out in it for a time I could
discern the shrubs dimly silhouetted against the light. The music struck
up inside again. A step approached me on the gravelled walk among the
flowers, and Harold called me softly by name. I answered him.

"Come," he said, "we are going to dance; will you be my partner?"

We danced, and then followed songs and parlour games, and it was in the
small hours when the merry goodnights were all said and we had retired to
rest. Aunt Helen dropped to sleep in a short time; but I lay awake
listening to the soft distant call of the mopokes in the scrub beyond the
stables.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

My Unladylike Behaviour Again

Joe Archer was appointed to take us home on the morrow. When our host
was seeing us off--still with his eye covered--he took opportunity of
whispering to me his intention of coming to Caddagat on the following
Sunday.

Early in the afternoon of that day I took a book, and, going down the
road some distance, climbed up a broad-branched willow-tree to wait for
him.

It was not long before he appeared at a smart canter. He did not see me
in the tree, but his horse did, and propping, snorted wildly, and gave a
backward run. Harold spurred him, he bucked spiritedly. Harold now saw me
and sang out:

"I say, don't frighten him any more or he'll fling me, saddle and all. I
haven't got a crupper or a breastplate."

"Why haven't you, then? Hang on to him. I do like the look of you while
the horse is going on like that."

He had dismounted, and had thrown the bridle rein over a post of the
fence.

"I came with nothing but a girth, and that loose, as it was so hot; and I
was as near as twopence to being off, saddle and all. You might have been
the death of me," he said good-humouredly.

"Had I been, my fortune would have been made," I replied.

"How do you make that out? You're as complimentary as ever."

"Everyone would b