'It is no use, I can go no further,' Cameron said, 'so please do not waste your breath'—and he unhobbled his horse and prepared for the journey home, his face set away from her, lest he should be softened.
How could he dream she wanted to tell him that a hundred and fifty was all they had asked, and more than the place was worth, so ill in repair was everything? Then the thought of this man's famous child came to her—Challis, with fingers of gold. What were a hundred pounds to the father of such a child?
She looked away from the eyes of her babe, she forgot that she and death were met, and replied:
'Very well, we will take two hundred and fifty, Mr. Cameron.'
Going homewards in the jolting buggy the talk was of the happiest.
'Miss Browne and I will look after the fowls, daddie,' Hermie said.
'An' me,' said Floss.
'You and I must get the crops in,' Bart and his father told each other.
But how this would be done, and what the crops should be, they had but the remotest notion; still, it was a phrase heard often in Wilgandra, and sounded well.
'Will it take you long to learn to shear the sheep?' asked Miss Browne timidly.