them a feed at night, and that was all they wanted. They
were two pretty good ones and not slow either. We took care of that when
we bought them. Nobody ever saw us on bad ones since we were boys, and
we had broken them in to stand and be caught day or night, and to let us
jump on and off at a moment's notice.

All that day, being awful hot and close, we stayed in the house and
yarned away with mother and Aileen till they thought--poor souls--that
we had turned over a new leaf and were going to stay at home and be good
boys for the future. When a man sees how little it takes to make women
happy--them that's good and never thinks of anything but doing their
best for everybody belonging to 'em--it's wonderful how men ever make
up their minds to go wrong and bring all that loves them to shame and
grief. When they've got nobody but themselves to think of it don't so
much matter as I know of; but to keep on breaking the hearts of those
as never did you anything but good, and wouldn't if they lived for a
hundred years, is cowardly and unmanly any way you look at it. And yet
we'd done very little else ourselves these years and years.

We all sat up till nigh on to midnight with our hands in one
another's--Jim down at mother's feet; Aileen and I close beside them on
the old seat in the verandah that father made such a time ago. At last
mother gets up, and they both started for bed. Aileen seemed as if she
couldn't tear herself away. Twice she came back, then she kissed us
both, and the tears came into her eyes. 'I feel too happy,' she said;
'I never thought I should feel like this again. God bless you both,
and keep us all from harm.' 'Amen,' said mother from the next room. We
turned out early, and had a bathe in the creek before we went up to the
yard to let out the horses. There wasn't a cloud in the sky; it was safe
to be a roasting hot day, but it was cool then. The little waterhole
where we learned to swim when we were boys was deep on one side and had
a rocky ledge to jump off. The birds just began to give out a note or
two; the sun was rising clear and bright, and we could see the dark top
of Nulla Mountain getting a sort of rose colour against the sky.

'George and Gracey 'll be over soon after breakfast,' I said; 'we must
have everything look ship-shape as well as we can before they turn up.'

'The horses may as well go down to the flat,' Jim says; 'we can catch
them easy enough in time to ride back part of the way