At such times she would sing softly to herself, Davey and Deirdre crouched on the grass beside her, and, when they begged for them, she would tell some of the fairy tales they loved to hear.
Mrs. Cameron scarcely ever saw the Schoolmaster, and it was rarely then that she spoke to him. Sometimes she discovered him in the background of a gathering of hill folk who met in the school-room on Sundays for hymns, prayers and a reading of the Scriptures, and sometimes she heard him singing in the distance as he rode along the hill roads. Deirdre had sensed a reserve in Mrs. Cameron's manner and attitude towards her father, and could not forgive her for it, though she had a shy, half-grateful affection for her.
Davey was not sure that he liked the Deirdre who had learnt to brush her hair and wear woman's clothes as well as the old Deirdre. There was something more subdued about her; her laughter was rarer, though it had still the catch and ripple of a wild bird's song. She was not quite tamed, however, for all that she did, deftly and quickly though it was done, had a certain wild grace.
It was one evening when she was knitting—making a pair of socks for the Schoolmaster—and muttering to herself; "Knit one, slip one, knit one, two together, slip one," that he realised Deirdre was going a woman's way and that he had to go a man's.
"It'll be moonlight early to-night, and there'll be dozens of 'possums in the white gums near the creek, Deirdre," he said, coming to her eagerly.
The proposition of a 'possum hunt had always been irresistible. Deirdre had loved to crouch in the bushes with him on moonlight nights and watch the little creatures at play on the high branches of trees near the edge of the clearing. They had flung knobby pieces of wood at them, or catapulted them, and were rejoiced beyond measure when a shot told, there was a startled scream among the 'possums and a little grey body tumbled from a bough in the moonlight to the dark earth.
But this night Deirdre shook her head, and went on with her murmuring of: "Knit one, slip one, knit one, two together, slip one."
"No, I can't go 'possuming to-night, Davey," she said. "I want to finish turning this heel."