What with the reading, the sewing, the teaching of Tottie, the daily cousinly walks and talks, the hitherto uncompromising Augusta became partially converted to station life, and finally admitted in conversation with Ernest that, other things being equal, she could imagine a woman enduring such privation for a few years, always assuming that she had the companionship of the one man to whom alone she could freely devote every waking thought, every pulsation of the heart.
‘Do you think there’s any man born, miss,’ inquired Tottie, who was laying the cloth for dinner, but who stopped deliberately and listened with qualified approval to the sentence with which Miss Neuchamp concluded her statement—‘any man born—except in a book—like that? I don’t. They most of ’em seem to me to take it very easy, smoking and riding about, and drinking at odd times. It’s the women that all the real pull comes on.’
‘I was not addressing myself to you, Mary Anne,’ replied Miss Augusta with dignity; ‘I was speaking to Mr. Neuchamp only. I should hardly think your experience entitled you to offer an opinion.’
‘H—m,’ said Tottie, proceeding with the plates. ‘I’m young, and I suppose I don’t know much. But I hear what’s going on. Don’t you think I’d better go down to Sydney, to take care of you on the road, miss, in case there’s a Chinaman to knock over? I think I could do that, if I was drove to it.’
On the next day an unusual occurrence took place in that land where events and novelties seemed to have perished like the grass, under the slow calcining of the deadly season—a dray arrived from town.
Miss Neuchamp, in her sore need of change and occupation, could have cheerfully witnessed the unpacking of ordinary station stores, in which, as usual, a little drapery would be comprised. But here again disappointment. It was merely a load of flour.
Depressed and discouraged, Miss Neuchamp had condescended to watch the unloading of the unromantic freight, deriving a faint interest in noting with what apparent ease Jack Windsor and Charley Banks placed the heavy bags upon their shoulders and deposited them in the store.
Rarely was Miss Augusta so lowered in spirit as not to be able to talk. On this occasion she had informed Tottie, with some relish, that English country girls were much ruddier and more healthy looking, as well as, she doubted not, stronger and more capable of endurance, than those born in Australia could possibly be.
‘Why so?’ inquired Tottie with animation.
‘Why?’ said Miss Neuchamp with asperity; ‘because of the cool, beautiful climate they live in, the regular, wholesome labour they are born to, the superiority of the whole land and people to this dull, deceitful country, all sand and sun-glare.’