listen. And your Uncle Tom, as
you may remember"--I did indeed--"did the same. It is natural that Mr.
Kingston's mind should dwell on agricultural subjects."

Presently wicked men began to mow the bracken with great scythes, and to
carry it away in carts which tilted and elbowed their way down the
mossy, heather-fringed tracks. Here and there the down-stretched arms of
the firs caught the topmost fronds of bracken and swept them from their
murdered brethren, and held them precariously suspended, only to drop
them when the first wind went by.

I left the cottage for a week to visit my husband's relations, and when
I returned the forest was bare. An indefinable sadness seemed to brood
over it, and to have reached Aunt Emmy as well. Mr. Kingston had also
been away to visit his relations, and had returned, and was staying at
the little inn on the edge of the forest, from which he could more
readily run up daily to town to have his shoulder massaged, which still
troubled him.

Aunt Emmy told me all this in her garden, where she was dividing her
white pinks. I knew she intended to make a fresh border, but the action
filled me with consternation.

"But Aunt Emmy," I said (the foolish words jolted out of me by sudden
anxiety), "will you--will you be _here_ next spring?"

I could have struck myself the moment the words were out of my mouth.

The trowel dropped from her hand.

"Oh no!" she said confusedly. "Neither I shall. I was forgetting. I
shall be in Australia."

She looked round the little garden which she had made with her own
hands, and back to the white cottage, up to its eyes in Michaelmas
daisies, which had become such an ideal home, and in which, poor dear!
she had taken a deeper root than she knew, and a bewildered pain passed
for a moment over her face. It was as if she had been walking in her
sleep, and had suddenly come in contact with some obstacle, and had
waked up and was not for the first moment certain of her surroundings.

"He is more to me than any cottage," she said, recovering herself
with a little gasp. "I had hoped perhaps he would have come and lived
here, and let me take care of him, after all his years of hard work.
But it was a selfish idea. He has told me that he cannot leave his
work or his uncle, who has been so kind to him, and who is very infirm
now--partially paralysed, and needing the greatest care. I shall--let
the cottage."

"What is the place in Australia like?" I said with du