It was a very hot day. So extreme was the heat that to save the lives of some young swallows my father had to put wet bags over the iron roof above their nest. A galvanized-iron awning connected our kitchen and house: in this some swallows had built, placing their nest so near the iron that the young ones were baking with the heat until rescued by the wet bagging. I had a heavy day’s work before me, and, from my exertions of the day before, was tired at the beginning. Bushfires had been raging in the vicinity during the week, and yesterday had come so close that I had been called out to carry buckets of water all the afternoon in the blazing sun. The fire had been allayed, after making a gap in one of our boundary fences. Father and the boys had been forced to leave the harvesting of the miserable pinched wheat while they went to mend it, as the small allowance of grass the drought gave us was precious, and had to be carefully preserved from neighbours’ stock.

I had baked and cooked, scrubbed floors and whitewashed hearths, scoured tinware and cutlery, cleaned windows, swept yards, and discharged numerous miscellaneous jobs, and half-past two in the afternoon found me very dirty and very tired, and with very much more yet to do.

One of my half-starved poddy calves was very ill, and I went out to doctor it previous to bathing and tidying myself for my finishing household duties.

My mother was busy upon piles and piles of wearying mending, which was one of the most hopeless of the many slaveries of her life. This was hard work, and my father was slaving away in the sun, and mine was arduous labour, and it was a very hot day, and a drought-smitten and a long day, and poddy calves ever have a tendency to make me moralize and snarl. This was life, my life and my parents’ life, and the life of those around us, and if I was a good girl and honoured my parents I would be rewarded with a long stretch of it. Yah!

These pagan meditations were interrupted by a footfall slowly approaching. I did not turn to ascertain who it might be, but trusted it was no one of importance, as the poddy and I presented rather a grotesque appearance. It was one of the most miserable and sickly of its miserable kind, and I was in the working uniform of the Australian peasantry. My tattered skirt and my odd and bursted boots, laced with twine, were spattered with whitewash, for coolness my soiled cotton blouse hung loose, an exceedingly dilapidated sunbonnet surmounted my head, and a bottle of castor-oil was in my hand.

I supposed it was one of the neighbours or a tea-agent, and I would send them to mother.

The footsteps had come to a halt beside me.

“Could you tell me if⁠—”

I glanced upwards. Horrors! There stood Harold Beecham, as tall and broad as of yore, even more sunburnt than ever, and looking very stylish in a suit of grey and a soft fashionable dinted-in hat; and it was the first time I had ever seen him in a white shirt and high collar.

I wished he would explode, or I might sink into the ground, or the calf would disappear, or that something might happen.

On recognizing me his silence grew profound, but an unmistakable expression of pity filled his eyes and stung me to the quick.

I have a faculty of self-pity, but my pride promptly refuses the slightest offer of sympathy from another.

I could feel my heart grow as bitterly cold as my demeanour was icily stiff, when I stood up and said curtly:

“This is a great surprise, Mr. Beecham.”

“Not an unpleasant one, I hope,” he said pleasantly.

“We will not discuss the matter. Come inside out of the heat.”

“I’m in no hurry, Syb, and couldn’t I help you with that poor little devil?”

“I’m only trying to give it another chance of life.”

“What will you do with it if it lives?”

“Sell it for half a crown when it’s a yearling.”

“It would pay better to shoot the poor little beggar now.”

“No doubt it would the owner of Five-Bob, but we have to be more careful,” I said tartly.

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I’m not offended,” I returned, leading the way to the house, imagining with a keen pain that Harold Beecham must be wondering how for an instant he could have been foolish enough to fancy such an object two years ago.

Thank goodness I have never felt any humiliation on account of my mother, and felt none then, as she rose to greet Harold upon my introduction. She was a lady, and looked it, in spite of the piles of coarse mending, and the pair of trousers, almost bulletproof with patches, out of which she drew her hand, roughened and reddened with hard labour, in spite of her patched and faded cotton gown, and the commonest and most poverty-stricken of peasant surroundings, which failed to hide that she had not been always thus.

Leaving them together, I expeditiously proceeded to relieve the livery-stable horse, on which Harold had come, of the valise, saddle, and bridle with which it was encumbered, and then let it loose in one of the grassless paddocks near at hand.

Then I threw myself on a stool in the kitchen, and felt, to the bone, the sting of having ideas above one’s position.

In a few minutes mother came hurrying out.

“Good gracious, what’s the matter? I suppose you didn’t like being caught in such a pickle, but don’t get in the dumps about it. I’ll get him some tea while you clean yourself, and then you’ll be able to help me by and by.”

I found my little sister Aurora, and we climbed through the window into my bedroom to get tidy. I put a pair of white socks and shoes and a clean pinafore on the little girl, and combed her golden curls. She was all mine⁠—slept with me, obeyed me, championed me; while I⁠—well, I worshipped her.

There was a hole in the wall, and through it I could see without being seen.

Mother was dispensing afternoon tea and talking to Harold. It was pleasant to see that manly figure once again. My spirits rose considerably. After all, if the place was poor, it was very clean, as I had scrubbed it all that morning, and when I came to consider the matter, I remembered that men weren’t such terrible creatures, and never made one feel the sting of one’s poverty half as much as women do.

“Aurora,” I said, I want you to go out and tell Mr. Beecham something.

The little girl assented. I carefully instructed her in what she was to say, and dispatched her. She placed herself in front of Harold⁠—a wide-eyed mite of four, that scarcely reached above his knee⁠—and clasping her chubby hands behind her, gazed at him fearlessly and unwinkingly.

“Aurora, you mustn’t stand staring like that,” said mother.

“Yes, I must,” she replied confidently.

“Well, and what’s your name?” said Harold laughingly.

“Aurora and Roy. I belong to Sybyller, and got to tell you somesing.”

“Have you? Let’s hear it.”

“Sybyller says you’s Mr. Beecher; when you’re done tea, you’d like me if I would to ’scort you to farver and the boys, and ’duce you.”

Mother laughed. “That’s some of Sybylla’s nonsense. She considers Rory her especial property, and delights to make the child attempt long words. Perhaps you would care to take a stroll to where they are at work, by and by.”

Harold said he would go at once, and accepting Rory’s escort, and with a few directions from mother, they presently set out⁠—she importantly trudging beneath a big white sunbonnet, and he looking down at her in amusement. Presently he tossed her high above his head, and depositing her upon his shoulder, held one sturdy brown leg in his browner hand, while she held on by his hair.

“My first impressions are very much in his favour,” said mother, when they had got out of hearing. “But fancy Gertie the wife of that great man!”

“She is four inches taller than I am,” I snapped. “And if he was as big as a gum-tree, he would be a man all the same, and just as soft on a pretty face as all the rest of them.”

I bathed, dressed, arranged my hair, got something ready for tea, and prepared a room for our visitor. For this I collected from all parts of the house⁠—a mat from one room, a toilet-set from another, and so on⁠—till I had quite an elaborately furnished chamber ready for my onetime lover.

They returned at dusk, Rory again seated on Harold’s shoulder, and two of the little boys clinging around him.

As I conducted him to his room I was in a different humour from that of the sweep-like object who had met him during the afternoon. I laughed to myself, for, as on a former occasion during our acquaintance, I felt I was master of the situation.

“I say, Syb, don’t treat a fellow as though he was altogether a stranger,” he said diffidently, leaning against the doorpost.

Our hands met in a cordial grasp as I said, “I’m awfully glad to see you, Hal; but, but⁠—”

“But what?”

“I didn’t feel over delighted to be caught in such a stew this afternoon.”

“Nonsense! It only reminded me of the first time we met,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “That’s always the way with you girls. You can’t be civil to a man unless you’re dressed up fit to stun him, as though you couldn’t make fool enough of him without the aid of clothes at all.”

“You’d better shut up,” I said over my shoulder as I departed, “or you will be saying something better left unsaid, like at our first meeting. Do you remember?”

“Do I not? Great Scot, it’s just like old times to have you giving me impudence over your shoulder like that!” he replied merrily.

“Like, yet unlike,” I retorted with a sigh.

Next day was Sunday⁠—a blazing one it was too. I proposed that in the afternoon some of us should go to church. Father sat upon the idea as a mad one. Walk two miles in such heat for nothing! as walk we would be compelled to do, horseflesh being too precious in such a drought to fritter it away in idle jaunts. Surprising to say, however, Harold, who never walked anywhere when he could get any sort of a horse, uttered a wish to go. Accordingly, when the midday dinner was over, he, Stanley, and I set out. Going to church was quite the event of the week to the residents around Possum Gully. It was a small Dissenting chapel, where a layman ungrammatically held forth at 3 p.m. every Sunday; but the congregation was composed of all denominations, who attended more for the sitting about on logs outside, and yarning about the price of butter, the continuance of the drought, and the latest gossip, before and after the service, than for the service itself.

I knew the appearance of Harold Beecham would make quite a miniature sensation, and form food for no end of conjecture and chatter. In any company he was a distinguished-looking man, and particularly so among these hard-worked farmer-selectors, on whose careworn features the cruel effects of the drought were leaving additional lines of worry. I felt proud of my quondam sweetheart. There was an unconscious air of physical lordliness about him, and he looked such a swell⁠—not the black-clothed, clean-shaved, great display of white collar-and-cuffs swell appertaining to the office and city street, but of the easy sunburnt squatter type of swelldom, redolent of the sun, the saddle, the wide open country⁠—a man who is a man, utterly free from the least suspicion of effeminacy, and capable of earning his bread by the sweat of his brow⁠—with an arm ready and willing to save in an accident.

All eyes were turned on us as we approached, and I knew that the attentions he paid me out of simple courtesy⁠—tying my shoe, carrying my book, holding my parasol⁠—would be put down as those of a lover.

I introduced him to a group of men who were sitting on a log, under the shade of a stringybark, and leaving him to converse with them, made my way to where the women sat beneath a gum-tree. The children made a third group at some distance. We always divided ourselves thus. A young fellow had to be very far gone ere he was willing to run the gauntlet of all the chaff levelled at him had he the courage to single out a girl and talk to her.

I greeted all the girls and women, beginning at the great-grandmother of the community, who illustrated to perfection the grim sarcasm of the fifth commandment. She had worked hard from morning till night, until too old to do so longer, and now hung around with aching weariness waiting for the grave. She generally poured into my ears a wail about her “rheumatisms,” and “How long it do be waiting for the Lord;” but today she was too curious about Harold to think of herself.

“Sure, Sybyller, who’s that? Is he yer sweetheart? Sure he’s as fine a man as iver I clapped me eyes on.”

I proceeded to give his pedigree, but was interrupted by the arrival of the preacher, and we all went into the weatherboard iron-roofed house of prayer.

After service, one of the girls came up to me and whispered, “that is your sweetheart, isn’t it, Sybyller? He was looking at you all the time in church.”

“Oh dear, no! I’ll introduce him to you.”

I did so, and watched him as they made remarks about the heat and drought. There was nothing of the cad or snob about him, and his short season of adversity had rubbed all the little crudities off his character, leaving him a man that the majority of both sexes would admire: women for his bigness, his gentleness, his fine brown moustache⁠—and for his wealth; men, because he was a manly fellow.

I know he had walked to church on purpose to get a chance of speaking to me about Gertie, before approaching her parents on the matter; but Stanley accompanied us, and, boy-like, never relaxed in vigilance for an instant, so there was no opportunity for anything but matter-of-fact remarks. The heat was intense. We wiped the perspiration and flies from our face frequently, and disturbed millions of grasshoppers as we walked. They had devoured all the fruit in the orchards about, and had even destroyed many of the trees by eating the bark, and now they were stripping the briers of foliage. In one orchard we passed, the apricot, plum, and peach-stones hung naked on their leafless trees as evidence of their ravages. It was too hot to indulge in any but the most desultory conversation. We dawdled along. A tiger-snake crossed our path. Harold procured a stick and killed it, and Stanley hung it on the top wire of a fence which was near at hand. After this we discussed snakes for a few yards.

A blue sea-breeze, redolent of the bushfires which were raging at Tocumwal and Bombala, came rushing and roaring over the ranges from the cast, and enshrouded the scene in its heavy fog-like folds. The sun was obscured, and the temperature suddenly took such a great drop that I felt chilled in my flimsy clothing, and I noticed Harold draw his coat together.

Stanley had to go after the cows, which were little better than walking hides, yet were yarded morning and evening to yield a dribble of milk. He left us among some sallie-trees, in a secluded nook, walled in by briers, and went across the paddock to roundup the cows. Harold and I came to a halt by tacit consent.

“Syb, I want to speak to you,” he said earnestly, and then came to a dead stop.

“Very well; ‘tear into it,’ as Horace would say; but if it is anything frightful, break it gently,” I said flippantly.

“Surely, Syb, you can guess what it is I have to say.”

Yes, I could guess, I knew what he was going to say, and the knowledge left a dull bitterness at my heart. I knew he was going to tell me that I had been right and he wrong⁠—that he had found someone he loved better than me, and that someone being my sister, he felt I needed some explanation before he could go in and win; and though I had refused him for want of love, yet it gave me pain when the moment arrived that the only man who had ever pretended to love me was going to say he had been mistaken, and preferred my sister.

There was silence save for the whirr of the countless grasshoppers in the brier bushes. I knew he was expecting me to help him out, but I felt doggedly savage and wouldn’t. I looked up at him. He was a tall grand man, and honest and true and rich. He loved my sister; she would marry him, and they would be happy. I thought bitterly that God was good to one and cruel to another⁠—not that I wanted this man, but why was I so different from other girls?

But then I thought of Gertie, so pretty, so girlish, so understandable, so full of innocent winning coquetry. I softened. Could anyone help preferring her to me, who was strange, weird, and perverse⁠—too outspoken to be engaging, devoid of beauty and endearing little ways? It was my own misfortune and nobody’s fault that my singular individuality excluded me from the ordinary run of youthful joyous-heartednesses, and why should I be nasty to these young people?

I was no heroine, only a common little bush-girl, so had to make the best of the situation without any fooling. I raised my eyes from the scanty baked wisps of grass at my feet, placed my hand on Hal’s arm, and tiptoeing so as to bring my five-foot stature more on a level with his, said:

“Yes, Hal, I know what you want to say. Say it all. I won’t be nasty.”

“Well, you see you are so jolly touchy, and have snubbed me so often, that I don’t know how to begin; and if you know what I’m going to say, won’t you give me an answer without hearing it?”

“Yes, Hal; but you’d better say it, as I don’t know what conditions⁠—”

“Conditions!”⁠—catching me up eagerly at the word. “If it is only conditions that are stopping you, you can make your own conditions if you will marry me.”

“Marry you, Harold! What do you mean? Do you know what you are saying?” I exclaimed.

“There!” he replied: “I knew you would take it as an insult. I believe you are the proudest girl in the world. I know you are too clever for me; but I love you, and could give you everything you fancied.”

“Hal, dear, let me explain. I’m not insulted, only surprised. I thought you were going to tell me that you loved Gertie, and would ask me not to make things unpleasant by telling her of the foolish little bit of flirtation there had been between us.”

“Marry Gertie! Why, she’s only a child! A mere baby, in fact. Marry Gertie! I never thought of her in that light; and did you think I was that sort of a fellow, Syb?” he asked reproachfully.

“No, Hal,” I promptly made answer. “I did not think you were that sort of fellow; but I thought that was the only sort of fellow there was.”

“Good heavens, Syb! Did you really mean those queer little letters you wrote me last February? I never for an instant looked upon them as anything but a little bit of playful contrariness. And have you forgotten me? Did you not mean your promise of two years ago, that you speak of what passed between us as a paltry bit of flirtation? Is that all you thought it?”

“No, I did not consider it flirtation; but that is what I thought you would term it when announcing your affection for Gertie.”

“Gertie! Pretty little Gertie! I never looked upon the child as anything but your sister, consequently mine also. She’s a child.”

“Child! She is eighteen. More than a year older than I was when you first introduced the subject of matrimony to me, and she is very beautiful, and twenty times as good and lovable as I could ever be even in my best moments.”

“Yes, I know you are young in years, but there is nothing of the child in you. As for beauty, it is nothing. If beauty was all a man required, he could, if rich, have a harem full of it any day. I want someone to be true.”

“The world is filled with folly and sin,
And love must cling where it can, I say;
For beauty is easy enough to win,
But one isn’t loved every day,”

I quoted from Owen Meredith.

“Yes,” he said, “that is why I want you. Just think a moment; don’t say no. You are not vexed with me⁠—are you, Syb?”

“Vexed, Hal! I am scarcely inhuman enough to be angry on account of being loved.”

Ah, why did I not love him as I have it in me to love! Why did he look so exasperatingly humble? I was weak, oh, so pitifully weak! I wanted a man who would be masterful and strong, who would help me over the rough spots of life⁠—one who had done hard grinding in the mill of fate⁠—one who had suffered, who had understood. No; I could never marry Harold Beecham.

“Well, Syb, little chum, what do you say?”

“Say!”⁠—and the words fell from me bitterly⁠—“I say, leave me; go and marry the sort of woman you ought to marry. The sort that all men like. A good conventional woman, who will do the things she should at the proper time. Leave me alone.”

He was painfully agitated. A look of pain crossed his face.

“Don’t say that, Syb, because I was a beastly cad once: I’ve had all that knocked out of me.”

“I am the cad,” I replied. “What I said was nasty and unwomanly, and I wish I had left it unsaid. I am not good enough to be your wife, Hal, or that of any man. Oh, Hal, I have never deceived you! There are scores of good noble women in the world who would wed you for the asking⁠—marry one of them.”

“But, Syb, I want you. You are the best and truest girl in the world.”

“Och! Sure, the blarney-stone is getting a good rub now,” I said playfully.

Annoyance and amusement struggled for mastery in his expression as he replied:

“You’re the queerest girl in the world. One minute you snub a person, the next you are the jolliest girl going, and then you get as grave and earnest as a fellow’s mother would be.”

“Yes, I am queer. If you had any sense, you’d have nothing to do with me. I’m more queer, too. I am given to something which a man never pardons in a woman. You will draw away as though I were a snake when you hear.”

“What is it?”

“I am given to writing stories, and literary people predict I will yet be an authoress.”

He laughed⁠—his soft, rich laugh.

“That’s just into my hand. I’d rather work all day than write the shortest letter; so if you will give me a hand occasionally, you can write as many yarns as you like. I’ll give you a study, and send for a truck-load of writing-gear at once, if you like. Is that the only horror you had to tell me?”

I bowed my head.

“Well, I can have you now,” he said gently, folding me softly in his arms with such tender reverence that I cried out in pain, “Oh, Hal, don’t, don’t!” and struggled free. I was ashamed, knowing I was not worthy of this.

He flushed a dusky red.

“Am I so hateful to you that you cannot bear my touch?” he asked half wistfully, half angrily.

“Oh no; it isn’t that. I’m really very fond of you, if you’d only understand,” I said half to myself.

“Understand! If you care for me, that is all I want to understand. I love you, and have plenty of money. There is nothing to keep us apart. Now that I know you care for me, I will have you, in spite of the devil.”

“There will be a great tussle between you,” I said mischievously, laughing at him. “Old Nick has a great hold on me, and I’m sure he will dispute your right.”

At any time Harold’s sense of humour was not at all in accordance with his size, and he failed to see how my remark applied now.

He gripped my hands in a passion of pleading, as two years previously he had seized me in jealous rage. He drew me to him. His eyes were dark and full of entreaty; his voice was husky.

“Syb, poor little Syb, I will be good to you! You can have what you like. You don’t know what you mean when you say no.”

No; I would not yield. He offered me everything⁠—but control. He was a man who meant all he said. His were no idle promises on the spur of the moment. But no, no, no, no, he was not for me. My love must know, must have suffered, must understand.

“Syb, you do not answer. May I call you mine? You must, you must, you must!”

His hot breath was upon my cheek. The pleasant, open, manly countenance was very near-perilously near. The intoxication of his love was overpowering me. I had no hesitation about trusting him. He was not distasteful to me in any way. What was the good of waiting for that other⁠—the man who had suffered, who knew, who understood? I might never find him; and, if I did, ninety-nine chances to one he would not care for me.

“Syb, Syb, can’t you love me just a little?”

There was a winning charm in his manner. Nature had endowed him liberally with virile fascination. My hard uncongenial life had rendered me weak. He was drawing me to him; he was irresistible. Yes; I would be his wife. I grew dizzy, and turned my head sharply backwards and took a long gasping breath, another and another, of that fresh cool air suggestive of the grand old sea and creak of cordage and bustle and strife of life. My old spirit revived, and my momentary weakness fled. There was another to think of than myself, and that was Harold. Under a master-hand I would be harmless; but to this man I would be as a two-edged sword in the hand of a novice⁠—gashing his fingers at every turn, and eventually stabbing his honest heart.

It was impossible to make him see my refusal was for his good. He was as a favourite child pleading for a dangerous toy. I desired to gratify him, but the awful responsibility of the aftereffects loomed up and deterred me.

“Hal, it can never be.”

He dropped my hands and drew himself up.

“I will not take your No till the morning. Why do you refuse me? Is it my temper? You need not be afraid of that. I don’t think I’d hurt you; and I don’t drink, or smoke, or swear very much; and I’ve never destroyed a woman’s name. I would not stoop to press you against your will if you were like the ordinary run of women; but you are such a queer little party, that I’m afraid you might be boggling at some funny little point that could easily be wiped out.”

“Yes; it is only a little point. But if you wipe it out you will knock the end out of the whole thing⁠—for the point is myself. I would not suit you. It would not be wise for you to marry me.”

“But I’m the only person concerned. If you are not afraid for yourself, I am quite satisfied.”

We faced about and walked homewards in unbroken silence⁠—too perturbed to fall into our usual custom of chewing bush-leaves as we went.

I thought much that night when all the house was abed. It was tempting. Harold would be good to me, and would lift me from this life of poverty which I hated, to one of ease. Should I elect to remain where I was, till the grave there was nothing before me but the life I was leading now: my only chance of getting above it was by marriage, and Harold Beecham’s offer was the one chance of a lifetime. Perhaps he could manage me well enough. Yes; I had better marry him.

And I believe in marriage⁠—that is, I think it the most sensible and respectable arrangement for the replenishing of a nation which has yet been suggested. But marriage is a solemn issue of life. I was as suited for matrimony as any of the sex, but only with an exceptional helpmeet⁠—and Harold was not he. My latent womanliness arose and pointed this out so plainly that I seized my pen and wrote:

Dear Harold,

I will not get a chance of speaking to you in the morning, so write. Never mention marriage to me again. I have firmly made up my mind⁠—it must be No. It will always be a comfort to me in the years to come to know that I was loved once, if only for a few hours. It is not that I do not care for you, as I like you better than any man I have ever seen; but I do not mean ever to marry. When you lost your fortune I was willing to accede to your request, as I thought you wanted me; but now that you are rich again you will not need me. I am not good enough to be your wife, for you are a good man; and better, because you do not know you are good. You may feel uncomfortable or lonely for a little while, because, when you make up your mind, you are not easily thwarted; but you will find that your fancy for me will soon pass. It is only a fancy, Hal. Take a look in the glass, and you will see reflected there the figure of a stalwart man who is purely virile, possessing not the slightest attribute of the weaker sex, therefore your love is merely a passing flame. I do not impute fickleness to you, but merely point out a masculine characteristic, and that you are a man, and only a man, pure and unadulterated. Look around, and from the numbers of good women to be found on every side choose one who will make you a fitter helpmeet, a more conventional comrade, than I could ever do. I thank you for the inestimable honour you have conferred upon me; but keep it till you find someone worthy of it, and by and by you will be glad that I have set you free.

Goodbye, Hal!

Then I crept into bed beside my little sister, and though the air inside had not cooled, and the room was warm, I shivered so that I clasped the chubby, golden-haired little sleeper in my arms that I might feel something living and real and warm.

“Oh, Rory, Rory!” I whispered, raining upon her lonely-hearted tears. “In all the world is there never a comrade strong and true to teach me the meaning of this hollow, grim little tragedy⁠—life? Will it always be this ghastly aloneness? Why am I not good and pretty and simple like other girls? Oh, Rory, Rory, why was I ever born? I am of no use or pleasure to anyone in all the world!”