les on the stream of existence to act as a stop-gap for the present.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

He

Here goes for a full account of my first, my last, my only _real_
sweetheart, for I considered the professions of that pestiferous jackeroo
as merely a grotesque caricature on the genuine article.

On making my first appearance before my lover, I looked quite the reverse
of a heroine. My lovely hair was not conveniently escaping from the comb
at the right moment to catch him hard in the eye, neither was my
thrillingly low sweet voice floating out on the scented air in a manner
which went straight to his heart, like the girls I had read of. On the
contrary, I much resembled a female clown. It was on a day towards the
end of September, and I had been up the creek making a collection of
ferns. I had on a pair of men's boots with which to walk in the water,
and was garbed in a most dilapidated old dress, which I had borrowed from
one of the servants for the purpose. A pair of gloves made of basil, and
a big hat, much torn in struggling through the undergrowth, completed my
make-up. My hair was most unbecomingly screwed up, the short ends
sticking out like a hurrah's nest.

It was late in the day when, returning from my ramble, I was met on the
doorstep by aunt Helen.

"While you are in that trim, I wish you would pluck some lemons for me.
I'm sure there is no danger of you ruining your turn-out. A sketch of you
would make a good item for the _Bulletin_," she said.

I went readily to do her bidding, and fetching a ladder with rungs about
two feet six apart, placed it against a lemon-tree at the back of the
house, and climbed up.

Holding a number of lemons in my skirt, I was making a most ungraceful
descent, when I heard an unknown footstep approaching towards my back.

People came to Caddagat at all hours of the day, so I was not in the
least disconcerted. Only a tramp, an agent, or a hawker, I bet, I
thought, as I reached my big boot down for another rung of the ladder
without turning my head to see whom it might be.

A pair of strong brown hands encircled my waist, I was tossed up a foot
or so and then deposited lightly on the ground, a masculine voice saying,
"You're a mighty well-shaped young filly--'a waist rather small, but a
quarter superb'."

"How dare anyone speak to me like that," I thought, as I faced about to
see who was parodying Gordon. There stood a man I had never before set
eyes on, smiling m