or your life and get a hot bath and a drop of
spirits or you'll catch your death of cold. Aunt Augusta will take a fit
and tie you up for the rest of the time in case something more will
happen to you."

"Catch a death of cold!" I ejaculated. "It is only good, pretty little
girls, who are a blessing to everyone, who die for such trifles; girls
like I am always live till nearly ninety, to plague themselves and
everybody else. I'll sneak home so that your aunt won't see me, and no
one need be a bit the wiser."

"You'll be sun-struck!" he said in dismay.

"Take care you don't get daughter-struck," I said perkily, turning
to flee, for it had suddenly dawned upon me that my thin wet clothing was
outlining my figure rather too clearly for propriety.

By a circuitous way I managed to reach my bedroom unseen. It did not take
me long to change my clothes, hang them to dry, and appear on the main
veranda where Miss Augusta was still sewing. I picked up the book I had
left on the mat, and, taking up a position in a hammock near her, I
commenced to read.

"You did not stay long at the river," she remarked. "Have you been
washing your head? I never saw the like of it. Such a mass of it. It will
take all day to dry."

Half an hour later Harold appeared dressed in a warm suit of tweed. He
was looking pale and languid, as though he had caught a chill, and
shivered as he threw himself on a lounge. I was feeling none the worse
for my immersion.

"Why did you change your clothes, Harold? You surely weren't cold on a
day like this. Sybylla has changed hers too, when I come to notice it,
and her hair is wet. Have you had an accident?" said Miss Augusta, rising
from her chair in a startled manner.

"Rubbish!" ejaculated Harold in a tone which forbade further questioning,
and the matter dropped.

She presently left the veranda, and I took the opportunity to say, "It is
yourself that requires the hot bath and a drop of spirits, Mr Beecham."

"Yes; I think I'll take a good stiff nobbler. I feel a trifle squeamish.
It gave me a bit of a turn when I rose to the top and could not see you.
I was afraid the boat might have stunned you in capsizing, and you would
be drowned before I could find you."

"Yes; I would have been such a loss to the world in general if I had been
drowned," I said satirically.

Several jackeroos, a neighbouring squatter, and a couple of bicycle
tourists turned up at Five-Bob that evening, and we had a jovi