have done too much already."

"Too much! Sure, damn it, wot's the good er bein' alive if we can't help
each other sometimes. I don't mind how much I help a person if they have
a little gratitood, but, damn it, I can't abear ingratitood."

"Good-bye, Mr M'Swat, and thank you."

"Good-bye, me gu-r-r-r-l, and never marry that bloke of yours if he don't
git a bit er prawperty, for the divil's in a poor match."

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Back at Possum Gully

They were expecting me on the frosty evening in September, and the
children came bounding and shouting to meet me, when myself and luggage
were deposited at Possum Gully by a neighbour, as he passed in a great
hurry to reach his own home ere it got too dark. They bustled me to a
glowing fire in no time.

My father sat reading, and, greeting me in a very quiet fashion,
continued the perusal of his paper. My mother shut her lips tightly,
saying exultingly, "It seems it was possible for you to find a worse
place than home"; and that little speech was the thorn on the rose of my
welcome home. But there was no sting in Gertie's greeting, and how
beautiful she was growing, and so tall! It touched me to see she had made
an especial dainty for my tea, and had put things on the table which were
only used for visitors. The boys and little Aurora chattered and danced
around me all the while. One brought for my inspection some soup-plates
which had been procured during my absence; another came with a
picture-book; and nothing would do them but that I must, despite the
darkness, straightaway go out and admire a new fowl-house which "Horace
and Stanley built all by theirselves, and no one helped them one single
bit."

After Mrs M'Swat it was a rest, a relief, a treat, to hear my mother's
cultivated voice, and observe her lady-like and refined figure as she
moved about; and, what a palace the place seemed in comparison to
Barney's Gap! simply because it was clean, orderly, and bore traces of
refinement; for the stamp of indigent circumstances was legibly imprinted
upon it, and many things which had been considered "done for" when
thirteen months before I had left home, were still in use.

I carefully studied my brothers and sisters. They had grown during my
absence, and were all big for their age, and though some of them not
exactly handsome, yet all pleasant to look upon--I was the only wanting
in physical charms--also they were often discontented, and wished, as