"I don't think I can manage very much longer without you—my Joan!" murmured Fred. "If you'll have me, darling."

And she only said, "Oh, Fred!"

But he understood.

A Christmas with Australian Blacks

BY

J. S. Ponder

Here is a story of an out-of-the-way Christmas entertainment got up for a girl's pleasure.

"I say, Dora, can't we get up some special excitement for sister Maggie, seeing she is to be here for Christmas? I fancy she will, in her home inexperience, expect a rather jolly time spending Christmas in this forsaken spot. I am afraid that my letters home, in which I coloured things up a bit, are to blame for that," my husband added ruefully.

"What can we do, Jack?" I asked. "I can invite the Dunbars, the Connors and the Sutherlands over for a dance, and you can arrange for a kangaroo-hunt the following day. That is the usual thing when special visitors come, isn't it?"