nness
of this mysterious world was about her.

'Joy,' he whispered. She bent her head to him. 'Where--what--' He
relapsed with a sigh. After all, it did not matter.

'You have been very ill, Jimmy,' she said.

His eyes moved to her face again, and he tried to nod, but found that
that was too much trouble too. It was too much trouble to pretend to
understand even. Aurora would hold him and prevent his floating out into
the fantastical, fairy atmosphere. It seemed right and natural that she
should be there. He had quite expected it. But had he? The train of
thought was too laborious: he abandoned it. Joy gave him something to
drink. She poured it into his mouth, and it ran down his throat. It was
good, wonderfully good--nectar, surely. Had he been told it was water he
would have resented the lie with as much energy as he was capable of
putting into any thought, and that was just the thin, silken line, next
to none at all. As a matter of fact, Joy had given him nothing but water.
It seemed to add to his weight, to give some little quality of substance
to his being. He thought he might thank her with a pressure of his
fingers presently, but the necessary power did not come, and he drifted
into sleep.

XX

THE Christmas of 1854 was the gayest ever known at Boobyalla; never had
Mrs. Donald Macdougal been so prodigal, never had such lavish hospitality
been dispensed under Macdougal's roof-tree, and the squatter wore a dour
and anxious look as he saw the liquor flowing, and heard the music, and
the laughter, and the clatter of dishes, and found himself in collision
with his wife's guests in all the passages and windings of his large,
wandering homestead. Macdougal, who, in addition to his sobriquet of
Monkey Mack, was known as Old Dint-the-Tin by the sundowners, shearers,
and miscellaneous swagmen to whom he sold pints of flour out of a
pannikin dinted in to shorten the measure, was not miserly in his
dealings with his wife and his children. He was reputed to be mean enough
to steal the buttons off a shepherd's shirt for his own use, and yet
permitted his wife to indulge in all the extravagances of purple and fine
linen, and paid, if not cheerfully--for it was not in his nature to be
cheerful over anything--at least without open complaint, for social
indulgences that ate up a large part of the results of his miraculous
economies in station management, and a sedulous penuriousness in
everything beyond his wife, his childre