for his own two-and-forty
years, he was a very well preserved man indeed.

Chapter VI

"Oh, Richard!... and my dress is blue," said Mary distractedly, and
sitting back on her heels let her arms fall to her sides. She was on
her knees, and before her lay a cardboard box from which she had
withdrawn a pink fan, pink satin boots with stockings to match, and a
pink head-dress.

"Well, why the dickens didn't you say so?" burst out the giver.

"I did, dear. As plainly as I could speak."

"Never heard a word!"

"Because you weren't listening. I told you so at the time. Now what am
I to do?" and, in her worry over the contretemps, Mary quite forgot to
thank her husband for the trouble he had been to on her behalf.

"Get another gown to go with them."

"Oh, Richard... how like a man! After all the time and money this one
has cost me. No, I couldn't do that. Besides, Agnes Ocock is wearing
pink and wouldn't like it." And with a forehead full of wrinkles she
slowly began to replace the articles in their sheaths. "Of course
they're very nice," she added, as her fingers touched the delicate
textures.

"They would need to be, considering what I paid for them. I wish now
I'd kept my money in my pocket."

"Well, your mistake is hardly my fault, is it, dear?" But Richard had
gone off in a mood midway between self-annoyance and the huff.

Mary's first thought was to send the articles to Jinny with a request
to exchange them for their counterparts in the proper colour. Then she
dismissed the idea. Blind slave to her nursery that Jinny was, she
would hardly be likely to give the matter her personal supervision: the
box would just be returned to the shop, and the transfer left to the
shop-people's discretion. They might even want to charge more. No,
another plan now occurred to Mary. Agnes Ocock might not yet have
secured the various small extras to go with her ball-dress; and, if
not, how nice it would be to make her a present of these. They were
finer, in better taste, than anything to be had on Ballarat; and she
had long owed Agnes some return for her many kindnesses. Herself she
would just make do with the simpler things she could buy in town. And
so, without saying anything to Richard, who would probably have
objected that Henry Ocock was well able to afford to pay for his own
wife's finery, Mary tied up the box and drove to Plevna House, on the
outer edge of Yuille's Swamp.

"Oh, no, I could never have got myself