mention; and around the memory of her mother there
had grown a mystery which the girl was unable to fathom.

"Now that this has occurred, there is no harm in disobeying my father,"
she said. "He told me never to speak of my mother to him or anyone else,
but when you give me her picture, it would be stupid to keep silence.
She looks good, doesn't she, Amiria? I think she was good, but my father
destroyed everything belonging to her: he even took the trouble to
change my name from Annabel to Rose--that was after we arrived here and
I was three years old. I do not possess a single thing that was hers
except this picture; and even that I must hide, for fear my father
should destroy it. Come, we will go in."

They passed along the shady verandah, and entered the house. Its rooms
were dark and cool, and prettily if humbly furnished. Rose took Amiria
along a winding passage, up a somewhat narrow flight of stairs, and into
a bedroom which was in one of the many gables of the wooden house. The
Maori girl took off her hat and gloves, and Rose, drawing a bunch of
keys from her pocket, opened a work-box which stood on the
dressing-table, and in it she hid the miniature of her mother. Then she
turned, and confronted Amiria.

The dark girl's black hair, loosened by riding, had escaped from its
fastenings, and now fell rippling down her back.

"It's a great trouble," she said. "Nothing will hold it--it is like
wire. The pins drop out, and down it all comes."

Rose was combing and brushing the glossy, black tresses. "I'll try _my_
hand," said she. "The secret is plenty of pins; you don't use enough of
them. Pins, I expect, are scarce in the _pa_." She had fastened up one
long coil, and was holding another in place with her white fingers,
when a gruff voice roared through the house:--

"Rosebud, my gal! Rosebud, I say! What's taken the child?"

Whilst the two girls had been in the bedroom, three figures had come
into sight round the bend of the beach-road. They walked slowly, with
heavy steps and swaying gait, after the manner of sailor-men. As they
ascended the winding pathway leading to the house, they argued loudly.

"Jes' so, Cap'n Summerhayes," said the short, thick-set man, with a
blanket wrapped round him in lieu of a coat, to the big burly man on his
left, "I stood off and on, West-Nor'-West and East-Sou'-East, waiting
for the gale to wear down and let me get into your tuppeny little port.
Now _you_ are pilot, I reckon.