of the river, and confined and
intensified the rumble of trains in a manner well calculated to
inspire the least imaginative of horses with the fear that the powers
of evil had broken loose about them. The alarm-bell was humanly
contrary in the discharge of its duty, and rang long and loudly when
there was no train, and was not to be heard at all when they were
rushing by in numbers. On this occasion, there being no train to drown
its blatant voice, it so disturbed me that I was keenly alive to a
dialogue that was proceeding in Miss Flipp's room.

"You must go away, I tell you," said Mr Pornsch. "A nice thing it
would be if a man in _my_ position were implicated."

"I didn't think a man of _your_ class would be so cruel," sobbed the
girl.

In rejoinder the man admitted one of the truths by which our
civilisation is besmirched.

"There's only one class of men in dealing with women like you."

Then fell a silence, during which Dawn turned in her sleep, and I
placed her head more comfortably lest she should awake and hear what
was proceeding.

Not that it would in any way have sullied her, for her virtue, by
sound heredity and hardy training, was no hothouse plant, liable to
shrivel and die if not kept in a certain temperature, but was a sturdy
tree, like the tall white-trunked young gums of her native forests, on
which the winds of knowledge could blow and the rains of experience
fall without in any way mutilating or impairing its reliability and
beauty. It was for the sake of our poor sister wayfarer who was on a
terrible thoroughfare, amid robbers and murderers, but who did not
want her plight to be known, that I did not wish Dawn to awake.

FOURTEEN.

THE PASSING OF THE TRAINS.

Next morning, when Andrew and I had finished the separator, grandma
came over to inspect the work. She sniffed round the dishes and cans,
which barely passed muster, and then descended upon the table by
running her slender old forefinger along the eaves, with the result
that it came up soiled with the greasy slush that careless wiping had
left there.

"Look at that, you dirty good-for-nothink young shaver; if the
inspector came round we'd most likely lose our licence for it, an'
it's no fault of mine. If a great lump your age can't be depended on
for nothink, I don't know what the world is coming to. I have to be
responsible for everythink that goes on your back and into your
stummick, and yet you can't do a single thing.