ong, then suddenly lay flat down on the ground,
and pressed her ear close to Mother Earth. What she heard did not
satisfy her. She rose again, repeating the same process several times.
Suddenly her eyes brightened; she raised her head, and listened
attentively, then she whistled a long peculiar note. There was no
answer, but Flower's face retained its watchful, intent expression. She
laid her head down once more close to the ground, and began to speak,
"David, David, I know you are there; there is no use in your hiding.
Come here, I want you, I, Flower. I will give you two minutes, David; if
you don't come then I'll keep the threat I made when you made me angry
with you at Ballarat."

A perfect silence followed Flower's words. She still lay flat on the
ground. One of the minutes flew by.

"I'll keep my word, David!" she said again. "You know me; you know what
my threat means. Three-quarters of a minute more, half a minute, then
I'll go home, and I'll do what I said I would do when you made me angry
at Ballarat."

Again there was silence, but this time quickly broken; a boy's black
head appeared above the bracken, a little brown hand was held out, and
David, without troubling himself to move a hair's breadth, looked full
into his sister's face.

"I don't want to lose you, Flower!" he said. "You are the only person in
all the world I care two-pence about. Now what's the row?"

"You're a cowardly boy, David, and I'm ashamed of you; come with me this
minute."

CHAPTER XVIII.

OH, FIE! POLLY.

While these events were taking place, and the children in their various
ways were preparing checkmate for Aunt Maria Cameron, that good lady
was having a by no means unexciting experience of her own. After her
housekeeping cares were over, after she had interviewed Mrs. Power, and
made Alice thoroughly uncomfortable; after, in short, meaning it all the
while for the best, she had succeeded in jarring the whole household
machinery to the utmost, it was her custom morning after morning to
retire with Scorpion into the seldom used drawing-room, and there,
seated comfortably in an old-fashioned arm-chair, with her feet well
supported on a large cushion, and the dog on her lap, to devote herself
to worsted work. Not crewel work, not church embroidery, not anything
which would admit of the use of modern art colors, but genuine,
old-fashioned worsted work. Mrs. Cameron delighted in the flaring
scarlets, pinks, greens, blues