Brighten, take some of that wood off the fire, and stuff something in
that hole there to stop the draught.'

Brighten--he was a nuggety little hairy man with no expression to be
seen for whiskers--had been running in with sticks and back logs from
the wood-heap. He took the wood out, stuffed up the crack, and went
inside and brought out a black bottle--got a cup from the shelf, and put
both down near my elbow.

Mrs Brighten started to get some supper or breakfast, or whatever it
was, ready. She had a clean cloth, and set the table tidily. I noticed
that all the tins were polished bright (old coffee- and mustard-tins
and the like, that they used instead of sugar-basins and tea-caddies and
salt-cellars), and the kitchen was kept as clean as possible. She was
all right at little things. I knew a haggard, worked-out Bushwoman who
put her whole soul--or all she'd got left--into polishing old tins till
they dazzled your eyes.

I didn't feel inclined for corned beef and damper, and post-and-rail
tea. So I sat and squinted, when I thought she wasn't looking, at
Brighten's sister-in-law. She was a big woman, her hands and feet were
big, but well-shaped and all in proportion--they fitted her. She was a
handsome woman--about forty I should think. She had a square chin, and
a straight thin-lipped mouth--straight save for a hint of a turn down
at the corners, which I fancied (and I have strange fancies) had been a
sign of weakness in the days before she grew hard. There was no sign
of weakness now. She had hard grey eyes and blue-black hair. She hadn't
spoken yet. She didn't ask me how the boy took ill or I got there, or
who or what I was--at least not until the next evening at tea-time.

She sat upright with Jim wrapped in the blanket and laid across her
knees, with one hand under his neck and the other laid lightly on him,
and she just rocked him gently.

She sat looking hard and straight before her, just as I've seen a tired
needlewoman sit with her work in her lap, and look away back into the
past. And Jim might have been the work in her lap, for all she seemed to
think of him. Now and then she knitted her forehead and blinked.

Suddenly she glanced round and said--in a tone as if I was her husband
and she didn't think much of me--

'Why don't you eat something?'

'Beg pardon?'

'Eat something!'

I drank some tea, and sneaked another look at her. I was beginning to
feel more natural, and wanted Jim again, now that t