This was to Margot, who, being form-companion as well as room-mate of her cousin, had easily slipped into being prime confidante as well; and who proved quite as companionable and understanding in her ways as any girl of Gretta’s own age could have been.
“Oh, she’s sure to,” she now broke in. “Mother’ll manage it. She can manage everyone.”
“I should just think she can,” agreed Gretta whole-heartedly. “I think she’s just the most wonderful person in the world.”
“That’s just what Long Jake used to say,” remarked Margot, nodding sagely. “She did a lot for him, you know.”
“What! That brave man!” questioned Gretta. “What could she do for him?”
“Well, he wasn’t brave before he met her; that’s what he used to say. I couldn’t understand it quite, but he used to say it.”
“I wonder what he meant?” said her cousin.
“Well, he came out to Australia from England, you know. He had been to college, and he’d been ‘sent down’ from Oxford. I don’t exactly understand, but I know he was in some kind of disgrace. And then his people wouldn’t speak to him, or something, for some reason that mother didn’t tell me about, and he didn’t either. Of course, he’d been travelling round some time before he struck us; but the first time I saw him he was just a sundowner, in quite torn clothes, and he hadn’t had anything to eat for ages, and——”
“Oh, poor thing!” exclaimed Gretta sympathetically.
“You wouldn’t call him that now,” laughed Margot. “We wanted a new hand then, though, and dad was away selling sheep, and mother took him on. He looked dreadful, but mother says she always knows about people. Anyhow, he grew to be dad’s great chum, and when dad went to the diggings he stayed behind and worked the farm with mother and me, and the rest of the men. He loves mother, and he says she made a man of him again. Oh, what a height he is, and so broad!”