useful purpose if I could.
It was important for me, less by reason of anything remarkable in
itself, than by virtue of what was going on in my own mind while I
posed for Mr. Rawlence (possibly in more senses than one) and
subsequently carried his paraphernalia for him, showed him his way
about the island, and generally attended upon him. I had hoped that he
would question me about my life before coming to St. Peter's, and he
did. By this time I was at my ease with him, and I think I told my
brief story intelligently. In any case, I interested him; so much I
saw clearly and with satisfaction. I noted, too, that he was impressed
by the name of the London newspaper with which my father had been
connected before his determination to seek peace in the wilds.

'H'm!' 'Ah!' 'Strange!' 'A recluse indeed!' 'And you think he had
never seen this--St. Peter's, that is, when he wrote the letter
arranging for you to come here? Well, to be sure, there was little
choice, of course, little choice enough, and in such a lonely,
isolated place.'

I remember these among his exclamations and comments upon my story.
And then he asked me what ideas I had about my future, and I told him,
none. I also told him of Ted's visit and of his offer to me, and my
refusal of it.

'Yes,' he said, 'that was wise of you, I think; that certainly was
best. In some countries now, in the Old World, one might advise you to
stick to the country. But here-- Well, you know, there must be some
real reason for the rapid growth of the Australian capital cities, and
the comparative stagnation of the countryside. The more cultured
people won't leave the capitals, and that affects country life. Yes,
but why won't they leave the cities? They do in the Old World, for
I've met 'em in the villages and country towns there. But why is it?'

Mr. Rawlence could hardly have expected an answer from me; but part of
his charm was that he made it seem, while he talked and I listened,
that we were jointly discussing the subject of his monologue, and that
he was much interested by my views. He had that air; his smile and his
manner made one feel that.

'Well, you know,' he continued, 'it must be partly the crude material
difficulties which the actual and physical conditions of country life
here present to educated people, and partly the fact that our country
in Australia has got no traditions, no associations, no atmosphere. It
is just a negation, a wilderness; not a rural civili