ly and put the alarm on two hours. "He can rest now," she
whispered to herself.

Presently Arvie sat bolt upright, and said quickly, "Mother! I thought
the alarm went off!" Then, without waiting for an answer, he lay down as
suddenly and slept.

The rain had cleared away, and a bright, starry dome was over sea and
city, over slum and villa alike; but little of it could be seen from the
hovel in Jones's Alley, save a glimpse of the Southern Cross and a few
stars round it. It was what ladies call a "lovely night," as seen from
the house of Grinder--"Grinderville"--with its moonlit terraces and
gardens sloping gently to the water, and its windows lit up for an
Easter ball, and its reception-rooms thronged by its own exclusive set,
and one of its charming and accomplished daughters melting a select
party to tears by her pathetic recitation about a little crossing
sweeper.

There _was_ something wrong with the alarm-clock, or else Mrs Aspinall
had made a mistake, for the gong sounded startlingly in the dead of
night. She woke with a painful start, and lay still, expecting to hear
Arvie get up; but he made no sign. She turned a white, frightened face
towards the sofa where he lay--the light from the alley's solitary lamp
on the pavement above shone down through the window, and she saw that he
had not moved.

Why didn't the clock wake him? He was such a light sleeper! "Arvie!"
she called; no answer. "Arvie!" she called again, with a strange ring
of remonstrance mingling with the terror in her voice. Arvie never
answered.

"Oh! my God!" she moaned.

She rose and stood by the sofa. Arvie lay on his back with his arms
folded--a favourite sleeping position of his; but his eyes were wide
open and staring upwards as though they would stare through ceiling and
roof to the place where God ought to be.

STRAGGLERS

An oblong hut, walled with blue-grey hardwood slabs, adzed at the ends
and set horizontally between the round sapling studs; high roof of the
eternal galvanized iron. A big rubbish heap lies about a yard to the
right of the door, which opens from the middle of one of the side walls;
it might be the front or the back wall--there is nothing to fix it.
Two rows of rough bunks run round three sides of the interior; and a
fire-place occupies one end--the kitchen end. Sleeping, eating, gambling
and cooking accommodation for thirty men in about eighteen by forty
feet.

The rouseabouts and shearers use the hut in