ot or poisoned some day, which he always
is,' said Aileen bitterly. 'I wonder any man should be content with a
wicked life and a shameful death.' And she struck Lowan with a
switch, and spun down the slope of the hill between the trees like a
forester-doe with the hunter-hound behind her.

When we came up with her she was all right again, and tried to smile.
Whatever put her out for the time she always worked things by kindness,
and would lead us straight if she could. Driven, she knew we couldn't
be; and I believe she did us about ten times as much good that way as if
she had scolded and raged, or even sneered at us.

When we rode up to Mr. Storefield's farm we were quite agreeable and
pleasant again, Jim makin' believe his horse could walk fastest, and
saying that her mare's pace was only a double shuffle of an amble like
Bilbah's, and she declaring that the mare's was a true walk--and so
it was. The mare could do pretty well everything but talk, and all her
paces were first-class.

Old Mrs. Storefield was pottering about in the garden with a big
sun-bonnet on. She was a great woman for flowers.

'Come along in, Aileen, my dear,' she said. 'Gracey's in the dairy;
she'll be out directly. George only came home yesterday. Who be these
you've got with ye? Why, Dick!' she says, lookin' again with her sharp,
old, gray eyes, 'it's you, boy, is it? Well, you've changed a deal too;
and Jim too. Is he as full of mischief as ever? Well, God bless you,
boys, I wish you well! I wish you well. Come in out of the sun, Aileen;
and one of you take the horses up to the stable. You'll find George
there somewhere.'

Aileen had jumped down by this time, and had thrown her rein to Jim, so
we rode up to the stable, and a very good one it was, not long put up,
that we could see. How the place had changed, and how different it was
from ours! We remembered the time when their hut wasn't a patch on ours,
when old Isaac Storefield, that had been gardener at Mulgoa to some of
the big gentlemen in the old days, had saved a bit of money and taken
up a farm; but bit by bit their place had been getting better and bigger
every year, while ours had stood still and now was going back.

Chapter 15

George Storefield's place, for the old man was dead and all the place
belonged to him and Gracey, quite stunned Jim and me. We'd been away
more than a year, and he'd pulled down the old fences and put up
new ones--first-rate work it was too;