ough they
might have been hazel: they were a bit too big and bright for me, and
now and again, when she got excited, the white showed all round the
pupils--just a little, but a little was enough.

She seemed extra glad to see me. I thought at first that she was a bit
of a gusher.

'Oh, I'm so glad you've come, Mr Ellis,' she said, giving my hand a
grip. 'Walter--Mr Head--has been speaking to me about you. I've been
expecting you. Sit down by the fire, Mr Ellis; tea will be ready
presently. Don't you find it a bit chilly?' She shivered. It was a bit
chilly now at night on the Bathurst plains. The table was set for tea,
and set rather in swell style. The cottage was too well furnished
even for a lucky boss drover's home; the furniture looked as if it had
belonged to a tony homestead at one time. I felt a bit strange at first,
sitting down to tea, and almost wished that I was having a comfortable
tuck-in at a restaurant or in a pub. dining-room. But she knew a lot
about the Bush, and chatted away, and asked questions about the trip,
and soon put me at my ease. You see, for the last year or two I'd
taken my tucker in my hands,--hunk of damper and meat and a clasp-knife
mostly,--sitting on my heel in the dust, or on a log or a tucker-box.

There was a hard, brown, wrinkled old woman that the Heads called
'Auntie'. She waited at the table; but Mrs Head kept bustling round
herself most of the time, helping us. Andy came in to tea.

Mrs Head bustled round like a girl of twenty instead of a woman of
thirty-seven, as Andy afterwards told me she was. She had the figure and
movements of a girl, and the impulsiveness and expression too--a womanly
girl; but sometimes I fancied there was something very childish about
her face and talk. After tea she and the Boss sat on one side of the
fire and Andy and I on the other--Andy a little behind me at the corner
of the table.

'Walter--Mr Head--tells me you've been out on the Lachlan river, Mr
Ellis?' she said as soon as she'd settled down, and she leaned forward,
as if eager to hear that I'd been there.

'Yes, Mrs Head. I've knocked round all about out there.'

She sat up straight, and put the tips of her fingers to the side of her
forehead and knitted her brows. This was a trick she had--she often did
it during the evening. And when she did that she seemed to forget what
she'd said last.

She smoothed her forehead, and clasped her hands in her lap.

'Oh, I'm so glad to meet some