“Well, I won’t pry. I’ll just stroll past the smithy.”
“I thought you were so fearfully busy?”
“So I am. I’m busy keeping you posted up in the latest intelligence.”
“Mamma wants some peas gathered. Get them for her, there’s a dear.”
“None of your blarney! You want to watch over my manners by keeping me in sight. Not a bit! Tom Lessing, like a magnet, lures me to Lessing’s Creek Farm, Douglas River, Australia.”
Austin walked with dignity out by the backdoor, but presently put his head in again, and remarked:
“Of course I’ll gather the peas—enough for five!”
Mrs. Morland was seated shelling peas in the orchard,—it was a warm June morning,—when her stepson, walking quickly over the short, sweet-smelling grass, came to her side.
“Can you spare a minute?” he asked with his old nervousness. The sight of his stepmother taking part in the day’s household work always increased his uneasy sense of his own shortcomings.