unny long green things in two, you came to a messy jelly . . . bah! it WAS nasty . . . you spat it out again as quick as you could. But a little later, though y

y writing letters. He ate freely of the delicacy; and his twin shadows demanded to eat, too. Their milk te

e bodies cramped with grinding, colicky pains. Green almonds? -"Oh, you naughty, NAUGHTY children! Haven't I told you never to touch th

paid dearly for their indulgence; but recovery was not in order of merit. Cuffy, who had enjoyed the lion's share, was the first to improve: remar

e they were, able to trot about; and their father celebrated the occasion by taking the trio for a walk by th

ard was keeping them out too long. However she said nothing; for they came back in go

Mary found the child doubled up with pain and wet with perspiration. By morning she was

in such oneness, there could be talk of a leader, then it was Lallie who led. A quarter of an hour older, a fraction of an inch taller, half a pound heavier, she had always been a thought bolder than her sister, a hint quicker to take the proffered lollipop, to speak out her baby thoughts. Just as Cuffy was their common model, so Lucie patterned herself on Lallie; and, without Lallie, was only half herself; even a temporary separa

ather she saw afterwards that this had been so: at the moment she had let the uncomfortable impressions escape her with all speed. It struck her that the child's progress was very slow. Also she noticed that Richard tried another remedy. However, this change seemed to the good; towards evening Lallie fell into a refreshing sleep. But

seem so well

she watched Richard make the necessary examination . . . ever so gently . . . she had never really known how tender his hands were, till she saw them used on the shrinking body of his own child. -"Papa's darling . . . Papa's good li

hat is it?

to be a certain amount of prostration . . . ti

in her arms. Throughout this day too, the sixth, she was forced to listen, sitting helplessly by, to a sound that was half a wail and half a moan of utter lassitude. And towards evening a more distressing symptom set in, in the shape of a convulsive retching. On her knees beside the bed, her right arm beneath Lallie's shoulders, M

ere, close beside you. There, there! It'll soon be better

rom her knees, laid her face down on the bed, and wrestled with the One she held responsible. "Oh, God, be

ps a thought that had come to her in the night . . . had haunted her . . . only to be thrust back into the limbo where it belonged. What if Richard .

owned all lesser considerations. "What .

well he knew the agonies of self-reproach that might await her. "Yes, you're right. I tell you what I'll do. I'll r

a short-cut up the back yard, past kitchen and henhouse. Oh! but he had no hat on . . . had gone out without one . . . had FORGOTTEN to put his hat on - he who was so afr

ternoon to drive into the bush: other people could not be put off, or neglected, because his own child lay ill. The wife of the Bank Manager, hearing of their trouble, came and took away the other children. And there Mary sat, heedless of food or rest, conscious only of the little tortured body on the bed before her; sat and fanned off the flies, and pulled up or turned down the sheet, according as fever or the rigors shook the chil

too, the stranger to caution. "Not a word, I beg of yo

th Richard's. Oh! the madness of calling in a man like this, when she had Richard at her side. Fool, fool that she was! Now, her only desire was to be rid of him again. She turned away, unable to look on while he handled Lallie, disarranged - hurt - her, in pulling back the sheet and exposing the distended drum-like little body. ("Um . . . just so.") His manner to Richard, too, was galling; his tone one of patronage. He no doubt regarded him

did Mahony, his arm round her bent shoulders, try to soothe her. "My darling, it sounds worse than it is. We feel it more than she does . . . now." Each time it burst forth an irrepressible shudder ran through Mary, as if it were she herself who was being racked. And on this night her passionate prayer ran: "Take her, God! . . . take her

heavy sighs. Time and place ceased to exist for Mary, as she sat and watched her child die. Through noon and afternoon and on into the dark, she tirelessly wiped the damp brow and matted curls, fanned off the greedy flies, one little inert hand held firmly in her own: perhaps somehow, on this, her da

f hopes and plans that she had woven about this little dear one's life; sat bidding farewell to many a tiny endearing feature of which none but she knew: in the spun-glass hair the one rebellious curl that would not twist with the rest; secret dimples kneaded in the baby body; the tiny birthmark

dressed her and got her to bed. Only then came the saving tears, setting free the desperate and conflicting emotions, till now so rigorously held in check, in a storm of grief of which he had never known the like. There was somethin

ature like Mary's would not be chastened by suffering: never would she know resignation; or

t hers. "Wife . . . my own dearest! . . . it is not fo

help ME! I want her now . . . and here. I want to hold her in my arms . . . and feel her . . . an

t well. She

die . . . and leave me? They tore her away - and tortured her - and frightened her. They may be frightening her still . . . such a little child, alone and frightened .

"If only I had never brough

oured breathing, as the bed shook under the shudders that stan

. . I meant i

you blame yourself. It might have happ

art to listen: it was little Lucie, waking from sleep in an empty bed and crying with fear. Rising, her father carried her over and laid her down in his own warm place;

ter when he crept back to look, mother and

to the little room where Lallie lay. -"I w

aken her to live with Him. His eyes all but dropped out of his head, a dozen questions jumped to his tongue; but he did not ask one of them; for Mamma never stopped crying, and Papa looked as he did when you didn't talk to him, but got away and tried not to remember. So Cuffy sat on the edge of the verandah and f

ather turned the slats of the venetian so that a pale daylight filtered in, Cuffy asked - in a voice he mea

n so. Here were no rigidly trussed limbs, no stiffly folded arms: the heave of the breath alone was missing. Lallie lay with one little hand under her cheek, her curls tumbling natural

her

d got a shock. "W

t; and now is empty and must fade. But though we shall not see her, our Lallie will go on living and growing . . .

TURES WILD, IN OUR EMBRACES WE AGAIN ENFOLD HER, SHE WILL NO

looked just like Miss Prestwick or Cousin Emmy, with a little small waist, and bulgings, and tight, high, buttoned boots. And against this picture especially the boots - som

inst the things he was unwilling to face, Cuffy tore his hand

Cuffy gave up expecting her to re-appear. Did he go into an empty room, or turn a corner of the verandah, it seemed to him that he MUST find Lallie there: suddenly she would have come back, and everything be as it was before. For since, by their father's care, all the sinister ceremonials and paraphernalia of death were kept from them, he was free to go on regarding it solely in the light of an abrupt disappearance . . . and if you could be spirited away in this fashion, who was to say if you mightn't just as easily pop up again? Also by Mahony's wi

*

There she stood, her gaunt eyes fixed on Richard, the em

at and mental suffering, was fretting her heart out over her remaining baby, little Lucie, now but the ghost of her former self. Coming on top of Lucie's own illness, her twin-sister's death had struck her a blow from which she did not see

se you'r

now

tice on the front page of the ARGUS. Outsiders, too, people Mary had almost forgotten, showed that they still remember

SMALL, AND HOW MUCH YOU ARE TO THEM. - AND NOW HARK TO ME, MY DEAR. I'D BEEN PLANNING BEFORE THIS TO TAKE A SHANTY AT LORNE FOR THE HOT WEATHER; AND WHAT I WANT IS FOR YOU TO COME AND SHARE IT WITH ME- SHARE EXPENSES, IF YOU LI

checked and numbered. Once more he counted them through. For weeks, nay, for months he had been laboriously adding pound to pound. In all there were close on forty of them. He had fully intended to make it fifty by New Year. Now there was no help: it would have to go. Fi